


Freelance Good Guys: Lost and Found

by TheGreys (alienjpeg)



Series: Looming Gaia [22]
Category: Freelance Good Guys, Looming Gaia
Genre: Abuse, Drama, Elves, Family Drama, Fantasy, Friendship, Gen, LGBTQ Character, Slavery, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 19:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21415285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienjpeg/pseuds/TheGreys
Summary: Someone is looking for Evan...But he doesn't want to be found.
Series: Looming Gaia [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/833844
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	1. A Stalker in Woodborne

**Author's Note:**

> Go here for concept art, discussions, memes, and more about the Looming Gaia series: https://loominggaia.tumblr.com/post/175087795478/looming-gaia-masterpost
> 
> A lot of the Looming Gaia stories stand on their own, but this definitely isn’t one of them. I recommend at least reading “Monster by Moonlight” and “Evangelites Skip, Matuzans Sway” before starting this one or it won’t make a lot of sense.
> 
> This is also a bit different from the other stories because it has no action/adventure elements, it’s just pure character-driven drama. I know that won’t be to everyone’s liking. But I felt like I had to make up for all the content that was cut in “Monster by Moonlight”, which was originally *twice as long* as it is now.
> 
> Since that was the very first story in the series, I ended up cutting a ton of characters, scenes, and plot elements out so it wouldn’t overwhelm people who were new to the series.
> 
> This story replaces a lot of what was lost in “Monster by Moonlight” and provides some closure for several characters we didn’t get to see much of before. Anyway, enjoy!

**[CHAPTER 1: A STALKER IN WOODBORNE** **]**

_ AUTUMN, 6006_

It was Evan’s turn to pick up the mail. But for the Freelance Good Guys, that wasn’t as simple as crossing the street.

Drifter’s Hollow was not marked on any map. The village was just too small and unimportant in the eyes of the Great Kingdoms. Surely for the best, for the mercenaries made a lot of enemies in their line of work.

That’s why their clients mailed contracts not to their headquarters where they lived, but to a post office box in the nearby town of Woodborne. Each day, someone would have to make the long trek to Woodborne’s post office. Today, that someone would be the mercenary captain himself.

He dismounted his red draft horse at the hitching posts, careful not to step in the surrounding manure. Beside his horse, which he’d so creatively named “Scarlet”, were several other horses, a couple mules, and an exotic golden yak which must have lumbered its way down from the Shrieking Mountains up north.

Evan stopped to look at the yak for a moment, chuckling at the ridiculous hump on its back. It looked just like the haystacks on his family’s farm. That was something he hadn’t thought about in around two decades, yet the memory popped up fresh as spring rain in his mind.

Its face, too, was covered in long hair that was in desperate need of a trim. The animal looked neglected overall, born to a life of plentiful work and scarce love. Evan looked around him. Townspeople bustled about without a care, so he discreetly plucked a blade from his belt and began trimming the overgrown hair obscuring the yak’s eyes.

The job was over in seconds. Evan tucked the blade away and said, “That wasn’t so hard, huh?”

The yak blinked, turning its head to observe its bright new surroundings. It made a low, bellowing sound and nudged Evan with its head, in what he could only assume was gratitude. The man smiled. He patted its broad nose before making his way into the old post office.

The interior couldn’t have been more drab, with walls of gray concrete and floors of dry, splintery wood. The air smelled of dust and paper.

Evan couldn’t stay in his own office for more than a couple hours at a time without feeling depressed. Every time he set foot in this place, he imagined working full-time as one of these paper-pushers and the fantasy always ended in suicide. How anyone could survive a “normal” profession was well beyond him.

He stopped at a great wall of metal boxes and reached for the keyring on his belt. As he fumbled through his keys—of which he had far too many—the fine hairs on his neck suddenly stood on end.

His lycanthrope senses were picking up an odd energy in the room. Despite the many busy people moving to and fro, Evan whipped his head to the right and focused on one man in particular.

The man had been looking back at him, had been staring a hole in the back of his head for some time. When Evan met his gaze, he quickly averted his own and turned back to the newspaper in his hands.

He was a fellow human, wearing a heavy leather coat over simple cotton clothes. A brimmed leather hat topped his head. He was fair of skin with short, graying hair and a robust moustache.

There was nothing remarkable about him. He was clearly an Evangelite, looked like every other man Evan knew growing up in that kingdom. So why were his senses so harried in his presence?

Evan’s muscles refused to relax. He quickly unlocked his company’s post box and snatched the mail inside, stuffing it in his leather satchel. He left the building and made a beeline for his horse.

But he slipped as he did so, flailed and caught a hitching post before he went down. He would have landed face-first in manure, he realized, and now his right boot was covered in it.

“Brilliant…” Evan grumbled as he trudged over to the spigot near the hitching posts. It was meant for filling the horse’s water trough, but he used it to wash his boot. Easier than trying to scrub manure off of his saddle later, he figured.

There was an empty metal bucket sitting beside the spigot. Evan flipped it over and sat upon it. Then he pulled off his right boot, exposing his wooden leg-shaped prosthetic beneath, and held it under the stream of water.

Passersby giggled at him here and there. He simply ignored them—he was used to it. Growing up in squeaky leg braces earned him plenty of stares and giggles as a child.

Then the hair on his neck stood up again, his nostrils twitching at a faint scent that aggravated his lycanthropy. Evan’s gaze shot back towards the post office.

The same mustached man from before was now leaning against the building with his newspaper. This time, a cigarette was hanging out of his mouth.

Evan looked the man up and down for a long moment, trying to find something unusual about him. Why did this stranger make him feel so uneasy? He could swear the man had been watching him again, had gone as far as to follow him outside.

Then again, smoking was forbidden in the post office. Too much paper, too risky, the city said. Perhaps he was just being paranoid. Paranoia was a classic symptom of lycanthropy, after all. Evan had to remind himself of that frequently, lest he let himself slip into lunacy.

The valve squeaked as Evan turned the water off, then with haste, he slipped on his false leg and mounted his horse. He glanced back at the man before he left. Once again, he caught the man looking back. They locked eyes for but half a second, then the man turned back to his paper.

A vague agitation buzzed through Evan’s nerves. No, something was not right here. He decided to trust his gut on the matter, and instead of heading towards home, he tugged Scarlet’s reigns to guide her further into Woodborne.

Why waste a whole trip just getting the mail anyway? Might as well enjoy the day out while he was here, he thought.

He rode to the tavern on the other end of town, as far from the post office as he could get without stumbling into the backwoods. He hitched his horse again, dismounted, and passed a man lying belly-up in the mud.

Other men were laughing just outside the door with drinks in their hands. Evan stopped, looking down at the man in the mud. He was out cold, reeking of mead and urine.

Evan glanced back at the other men. They didn’t seem to care if this one choked on his vomit or not. He let out a sigh, then flipped the unconscious drunkard onto his side before heading into the tavern.

He approached the bar and ordered a stein of Folkvaran beer, but he did not drink it there. Rather, he sat at a little table in the back corner of the room. It was dark and isolated, a place where he had a good vantage point of the whole room and no one could sneak up from behind. Evan quietly sipped his drink, minding his own business until someone decided to approach him.

She was a bar wench, a satyr like so many others. There was hardly enough meat on her bones for her corset to squeeze, the raggedy hem of her dress hanging down to her furry ankles. Her loose hair was dark and graying, her eyes haggard. Evan had a feeling she probably wasn’t as old as she looked.

The wench pulled a match from her dress pocket, struck it on her stubby horn, and lit the candle on his table. It flickered in its grimy glass bowl. Then she took a seat across from him and rested her chin on her hands.

She batted her lashes, exposing a few missing teeth as she said, “How about a date, soldier?”

Evan lowered his stein and wiped the froth from his mouth. With nothing better to do, he decided to humor her. “A date, huh? Don’t you want to know my name first?”

The satyress swatted the air and replied, “It ain’t important.”

“It’s important to me,” Evan told her. “What’s _your_ name?”

“Folks call me Calamity.”

Raising an eyebrow, Evan queried, “Calamity? Do you like such a name?”

The satyress shrugged. “Fits well enough. I’m a livin’ _disaster_, you see!” She burst into throaty laughter, slamming her palm on the table. Evan offered a strained smile back before sipping his beer.

“So, how ‘bout it?” she asked. “Slip a lady some coin for lunch, and I’ll slip my dress off for you. What happens from there, that’s up to you, soldier.” She punctuated herself with a wink.

Evan chuckled, just a gust of breath from his nostrils. “I’m no soldier,” he said.

Calamity quirked her brow. “No? Oh, you liar!” She reached over the table, pushing his short sleeve up to squeeze his bicep. Her hands could not close around it. “Look at ya! You’re built like a brick shit-house!”

Evan chuckled again, more genuine this time. He tugged his sleeve back down and told her, “I’m not. Really.”

“Then you must be a sailor.”

“Afraid not.”

“Freight-humper?”

“Nope.”

Calamity paused, drumming her fingertips against her painted lips. She stared the man down for a long moment. Then she pointed her finger at him, a toothy smile spreading across her face when she said, “Ah, I know! You’re one of Cerno’s mutts, ain’t ya?”

Evan’s brows shot up, face blanching. He didn’t expect some backwater bar wench to guess correctly. He was always careful about keeping his hair short and his face smooth. Was his lycanthropy really so obvious, despite that?

His jaw fell slack and silent, surely making him look a fool. He took too long to reply, so the satyress clapped her hands and crowed, “Ha! Calamity knows ‘em when she sees ‘em!”

“Shh!” Evan hushed her, practically throwing himself over the table to clamp a hand over her mouth. “Don’t even say that! I’m not one of them,” he told her, but the quake in his voice said otherwise.

Calamity shoved his hand away and laughed, “You can’t even lie right! You’re a damn schoolboy! What’re you doin’ in a cesspool like this anyway?”

Evan’s face flushed pink. The pits of his cotton shirt suddenly felt damp. Feeling indignant, he sucked down the rest of his drink and replied sharply, “I should ask the same of you! I can’t imagine you’re here for _fun_.”

The satyress’ expression quickly changed. The life seemed to drain from her eyes, and though the smile remained on her face, keeping it there suddenly looked like an effort.

“I’m here,” she began slowly, braiding her fingers together before her, “for the same reason any woman is here. To suck gold from the diseased peckers of men like _you_.” She jabbed her finger against his forehead, quite a bit harder than necessary.

Evan’s brows jumped a little. He couldn’t look her in the eye anymore. “I, uh…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” he apologized. He waggled the empty stein. “Guess this stuff is stronger than I thought. I’ve been a little on edge today, but I can’t imagine what you’ve been through since I walked in.”

Calamity’s eyes softened. “Thanks. It ain’t your fault anyway. I put myself here, makin’ all the bad decisions I did.” She shrugged. “Here’s some advice for you, schoolboy: don’t piss where you sleep ‘n don’t shit where you eat.”

“That’s sound advice, but…” Evan sighed, staring at the bottom of his stein. “It’s too late for that, unfortunately.”

The satyress gently took the stein from his hand. She patted his shoulder and said, “Hey, don’t feel bad. I just did forty years in the clink myself. At least you didn’t kill someone, right? Let me get you another drink.”

She stood up and quickly disappeared into the crowd of laughing, stumbling patrons. Evan let out a long sigh as he dropped his face into his hands.

He raked his fingers through his short hair, then dragged them back down over his face. As he lifted his head, he caught a flash of a familiar leather hat in the crowd. He dropped his hands and squinted in the dim light.

A man in a brown leather hat and coat was sitting alone on the other side of the room. He had a stein of beer in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He and Evan briefly locked eyes, then the man turned back to his paper and raised the stein to his lips. It was the very same man from the post office.

Evan shot up from his seat. He tried to look casual as he left some odd amount of gold coins on the table, not even bothering to count them. Then he shoved through the crowd of drunken patrons and rushed out the door, a cloud of cigarette smoke billowing out with him.

If Calamity the uneducated ex-convict could tell he was a lycanthrope, why wouldn’t this man? Evan felt he was being spied upon. Followed. _Hunted_.

He couldn’t lead this predator back to his village, nor could he make himself too obvious. He had to lose this stalker before he went home.

Evan nearly tripped over the man in the mud as he hurried to the hitching posts. He briefly froze when he noticed the golden-haired yak again, hitched up right beside his horse. Did it belong to his stalker?

Evan clambered onto Scarlet’s saddle and guided her down the road. The horse’s hooves clip-clopped along the cobblestone as she trotted, weaving between carts and pedestrians in her path. Evan threw a glance behind him. He saw no yak, nor the man on his tail.

He thought himself clever when he hitched Scarlet outside the theatre, then walked three blocks away to a smokehouse. He disappeared into the creaky old building. Its roof stretched to a tall point where smoke gathered, rising from the fire below. Skewered on a spit above the fire were a dozen chunks of meat, some Evan could identify and others he couldn’t.

The place was full of hungry customers. Evan supposed he was among them, for lycanthropy ensured that his stomach was never satisfied. What was the harm in getting a bite?

He examined what was available on the spit. He saw a pig, several rats, a goat’s head, and what he could only assume was a small dog. He wasn’t above eating any of it.

But he decided he’d feel less like a bloodthirsty wolfman if he ate something without eyes, so he ordered an entire rack of sheep’s ribs with a side of potatoes. A big, lumbering troll brought him his food before long.

The plate took up most of the little wooden table. Evan dropped a few coins in the troll’s leather palm and began to eat, eyes constantly shifting around the room as he did.

His stalker was nowhere to be found. Evan watched the door, took note of every customer that walked in and out, and not once did he see the strange man. He picked his plate clean, leaving nothing but a pile of bones behind. Though his belly was full, a weight had lifted off his shoulders, knowing he’d finally escaped the man’s scrutiny.

He still had to wonder what that scrutiny was all about. He’d been followed before, plenty of times, but usually those stalkers turned out to be bandits waiting to ambush him. The mustached man didn’t really look the part. He was too well-dressed, carried himself too confidently to be a gold-seeking lowlife.

That only made Evan more nervous. He’d made so many enemies over the last couple decades from all over the world…What if someone finally put a hit on him? It wouldn’t have been the first time, but it would be the first time an assassin had caught him so close to home.

Evan was confident that he could defend himself from just about anything, but his concern wasn’t his own life. His true concern was some vengeful cretin finding out where his loved ones lived and hurting _them_.

He left the smokehouse, keeping a sharp eye out as he returned to Scarlet waiting several blocks away. Rounding the corner, he stopped in his tracks. Standing before him at the hitching posts was not only Scarlet, but the golden-haired yak as well. Even worse, the strange man was there too.

The man was brushing the yak’s long, dirty fur—something he obviously didn’t do often. He glanced towards Evan just briefly before returning to his work.

Evan had enough. He stormed towards the stranger and seized the front of his coat, slamming his back against one of the posts. The yak and several horses brayed in fright.

The man raised his palms in surrender, made no attempt to struggle as he cried, “Woah, woah, fella! What’s the problem?”

“Who sent you?” Evan asked lowly, sharply, still clutching the man’s collar in an iron grip.

The man quirked his brow, tilted his head a little when he replied, “Beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” Evan insisted.

“Sir, I have no idea what the issue is here,” said the man, slowly removing his hat. His hair was thinning along his scalp. “I mean you no harm! Really!”

Evan told him, “Don’t play games with me. You’ve been following me since I rode into town. Now, state your business or things are going to get very unpleasant for you.”

At this, the man let out a hearty laugh. He fanned himself with his hat and replied, “Oh, yes! I thought it quite strange, the way we keep bumping into eachother!” He gestured vaguely down the road. “I noticed back at the post office, you had a false leg. I wanted to ask if you were a veteran, but you looked mighty busy. I couldn’t bring myself to bother you.”

Evan’s grip loosened further, expression softening above. The stranger added, “I’m awful sorry for all that staring, sir. You must get it a lot, missing a limb and all. I meant no disrespect.”

Slowly, Evan uncurled his fist and released the man’s coat. He regarded the man with a hard stare, searching his face. It was hard to read. He didn’t have the shifty eyes of a bandit or the soulless glare of an assassin.

Perhaps he’d been mistaken after all. The full moon was only a week away. Perhaps its power was gripping him a bit prematurely and making mountains of mole hills.

In an attempt to reassure him, the man said, “I was an Evangeline military sergeant myself, you see. Sergeant Lorenso Shull.” He quickly straightened his coat collar that Evan wrinkled. “I’ve long since retired, of course. Now I’m just a simple yak breeder. If I wanted to do harm to you, sir, the best I could do is sell you a sick animal. Wouldn’t be in the market for a steed, would you? I’ve got horses too!”

“Er…” Evan stepped back from him, swiping at his neck. “No, thank you. If you are who you say you are, then, uh…I’m very sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today.”

Lorenso offered a smile, placing his hat back on his head. “No worries, fella. Trust me, I know how it is. You spend enough time on the battlefield and suddenly danger’s lurking around every corner. Just can’t be too careful.”

He looked around, then leaned in close and whispered, “Especially with all these hobs ‘n beastie-folk running loose, right?” He drew back with a laugh and playfully slapped Evan’s arm.

Evan didn’t crack a smile. But he didn’t voice his disapproval of such bigotry either, for he could tell the man really was Evangelite born and bred. Asking him to leave his bigotry in the blue kingdom was like asking an Aquarian to leave water.

Instead, he said, “I’m not a soldier, actually.”

“You aren’t?” Lorenso’s bushy brows shot up. “Damn. I was a sergeant for over a decade, and I’m telling you, you’ve got the stuff! I apologize, I didn’t mean to presume. I just thought, by your accent and all, you must be a Blue Valley boy.”

“You thought right,” said Evan, smiling slightly. “I take it you’re from the southwest?”

“Aldfog, Timberland Forest. About as southwest as you can get,” Lorenso told him. “But my business takes me all over the place these days. It’s good to travel, isn’t it? Now, I’m not one to trash-talk our lovely Queen Indiga…”

He smiled and gestured around him. “…but I suppose there’s a reason we’re both standing in her enemy’s territory, drinking Folkvaran beer and selling wares to Folkvaran people. It was gold that brought me here, but what about you, sir?”

Evan hesitated. He crossed his arms and shrugged when he replied, “Same reason. Just chasing gold.”

“Just gold, huh? That’s all? Not, say, a good woman outside your own family?” Lorenso let out a hearty laugh, slapping his knee.

Evan rolled his eyes, offering a smile for the man’s sake. As if he hadn’t heard enough “inbred Evangelite” jokes to last a lifetime…

“Ah, I jest! I jest! Of course you’re here for gold. Treason comes mighty cheap these days, doesn’t it?” Lorenso winked. “I think you and I are two of a kind, mister, uh…I’m sorry, I don’t believe I got your name.”

“My apologies,” said Evan, extending his hand for a shake. “It’s Atlas. Evan Atlas.”

Lorenso’s eyes rounded wide for a fraction of a second. Had Evan blinked, he would have missed it. Then he firmly shook Evan’s hand and said, “Ah, you’re an Evangeline boy through and through! If I had a coin for every Evan Atlas that passed through my barracks, I’d have retired ten years earlier! You got a sister or a wife named Angeline, don’t you? Oh, please tell me they’re not the same person…If so, I apologize for my joke earlier. I’ve got a rotten sense of humor, you understand. Who a fella chooses to marry is none of my business.”

“No, no,” Evan chuckled, “but Angeline _was_ my grandmama’s name, and my mama’s middle name.”

Lorenso shook his head and straightened his hat. “Of course it was…Love our countrymen and all, but we’re not the most creative bunch. That’s what Gaia made Matuzans for.”

Evan laughed, full and genuine. He immediately thought of Lukas and all his artistic endeavors.

“And let me guess,” began Lorenso, “your papa was an Edmund, a Foster, or a Connor.”

Evan paused, hesitating. “Foster,” he admitted with a sullen nod.

“And I suppose you took his first name as your middle like they all do.”

“Yes.”

Lorenso nodded thoughtfully, scratching at his mustache. “Yep, all you Blue Valley folks are as predictable as the sunrise. Things don’t change much at all in those parts. Why, I visited Greenhearst just last month and that old place looked just the same as it did twenty years ago! Folks still living off steak and potatoes, still working their slaves to death, and still hitching up with their sisters. But if it ain’t broke, I guess there’s no sense in fixing it.”

Evan twitched at the name Greenhearst. He considered saying something, mentioning that it was the place he was born and raised…

But he realized he’d already said far too much. Lorenso talked to him as if they’d known eachother their whole lives, and Evan had gotten too comfortable speaking with him. He was sure, though, that this was not a malicious person. This was just a kind old veteran trying to make ends meet.

Evan had let his lycanthropy fool him once again. He mentally kicked himself, and he’d probably continue to kick himself about it for weeks. There was not a beast, a monster, a person, or _anything_ on all of Looming Gaia that frightened him more than lycanthrope lunacy.

He hadn’t forgotten his mother’s tale about old Ms. Agathe, driven to madness by her disease. It haunted his worst nightmares ever since Horace infected him all those years ago. He could not, under any circumstances, let the lunacy take hold.

He chatted with Lorenso for just a few minutes more, and then he decided it was time to part ways. He already wasted enough time humoring his paranoia. There were chores and paperwork waiting for him back home. He mounted his horse as Lorenso climbed onto his yak, settling just behind the great hump on its back.

“It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Atlas,” said Lorenso.

Evan smiled and replied, “Of course. Safe travels, Mr. Shull.”

*

A week passed in the Hollow. Everything was running as usual, except Linde was stuck in bed with the flu. That meant it was Lukas’ turn to get the mail.

Lukas hated spending his day off this way. If he had a full day’s worth of pay sitting around, he’d pay one of his crewmen to do it for him. Riding his horse to Woodborne would take half the day, and riding it back would claim the other half. What a waste, he thought!

That was why he approached Isaac with a deal.

“You fly me to Woodborne and I’ll buy you a show,” he told the young man. Isaac wasn’t hard to please. He accepted the offer, then slipped on his flight goggles and quickly dressed Shadow in her harness. Before long, Lukas was soaring through the air in the roc’s gazebo.

The trip that should have taken half the day took about an hour by air. Shadow touched down in a grassy field on the outskirts of Woodborne. There she waited with the gazebo while Lukas and Isaac made their way into the town proper. They stopped at the theatre, where all manner of performances took place all day, every day.

Isaac looked at the posters advertising each show, then spent a few minutes reading the time listings. Lukas snapped impatiently, “Will you hurry up? I want to get out of here. This whole town smells like horse shit.”

“I wanna see this one,” decided Isaac, pointing to a listing. “It starts in a few minutes, and it says it runs for an hour.”

Lukas leaned forward and squinted at the text. “A puppet show? How old are you—five?”

“Sounds like someone wants to walk home…”

With a dramatic roll of his eyes, Lukas counted out his gold pieces and handed them to Isaac. Isaac snatched them with a toothy grin before bolting into the theatre.

Lukas made his way to the post office just a few blocks down and picked up the mail. He had plenty of time to kill, so he leaned against the wall and examined the stack of letters.

Most of them were business correspondence, addressed to the Freelance Good Guys’ company. Somebody, somewhere, always needed a monster slain, a relative rescued, or a criminal wrangled. It was Evan’s job to sort through these every morning. When he was dispatched elsewhere or too busy, that dreadful job fell on Lukas.

Other letters were personal, addressed to the mercenaries individually. Perhaps they made enemies everywhere they went, but they seemed to make ten times the amount of friends. He found one addressed to Evan from “King Jelani Fanaka of Uekoro”. The envelope was red and it smelled like high-end perfume. He considered trashing it.

Then he noticed another letter for Evan, this one from a “Mrs. Abigail Galanis of Evangeline Capital”. He furrowed his brow, staring at the name for a long moment. Wasn’t Abigail the name of Evan’s sister? Evan once told him she married his childhood bully, a Galanis boy, and rode away to the blue kingdom’s capital city.

No, it couldn’t possibly be. Evangelites were inbred, backwater people who shared the same handful of names between them. There were probably hundreds of Abigail Galanises in Evangeline Capital. Then again, this wasn’t a business letter. This was a personal letter, addressed specifically to Evan himself.

Lukas stuffed the rest of the mail into his satchel. He carried Abigail’s letter outside and into the alley beside the building. He looked around for scrutiny before plucking a concealed dagger from his boot. He used its fine edge to carefully open the envelope as discreetly as possible.

Opening the personal mail of other mercenaries was strictly against the Freelance Good Guys code, and Lukas had always respected that rule in the past. This was the one single exception, and he justified it by reminding himself that he was Evan’s best friend, his former lover, and his second-in-command. No one on Looming Gaia knew Evan like Lukas did.

Lukas thought no one loved Evan like he did either, or knew what was best for him like he did. Not even Evan knew what was good for Evan, the oaf. This letter could be extremely important, and he didn’t trust Evan not to simply trash it or make a poor decision.

So Lukas pried into the man’s personal mail and read a letter that was never meant for his eyes to see. It read,

“_To Evan Foster Atlas, my dear little brother,_

_ I’m sure you’re surprised to hear from me. I do hope I’ve written the right person. If not, then please disregard this letter._

_ I want you to know that I have never stopped searching for you since the day you left. Mama tells me I’m a fool. She believes you’re long dead, but I know better. Whatever ill-will you believe we hold towards you, it isn’t so. We have always loved you and we always will._

_ All is forgiven. All means everything._

_ So please, if this is really you, come visit us at the address I’ve enclosed. Or at the very least, send a letter back so I can prove to Mama that you’re alright. She is old and sick, Evan. She mourns you terribly. If there is one thing in this world that could make her smile again, it would be to see your face._

_ Come see us and I will explain everything. You are loved and you are missed._

_ Sincerely,_

_ Abigail Galanis_”

Lukas stared at the letter for a long moment. He read it three times over, then a fourth time just to be sure his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. Suddenly he did not regret breaking the privacy code, for he knew this was something Evan couldn’t handle seeing. Such a thing would torment the man, break him down like a clay pot and drive him to drink.

The archer could picture it now. He imagined Evan reading the letter, then storming out of his office and throwing it straight into the fireplace. He would moan and cry and agonize over it for days, into months, into _years_ because there was no way he had the courage to interact with his family again. Not after the heinous thing he’d done.

Evan could confront monsters and bandits all day long, but the thought of confronting his family about that fateful night struck terror into his heart.

Lukas remembered how Evan pushed him to reconcile with Jelani last year. He pushed and pushed, and Lukas resisted like a feral animal being pushed into a cage. He resisted because he feared confronting his past, confronting Jelani, facing his terrible mistakes and all the pain that came with them.

But once all was said and done, he thanked Evan for pushing him. If he hadn’t, Lukas’ past would have continued to haunt him until his dying breath.

If he were a decent friend, Lukas thought, he would do the same for Evan. Evan would never, in a million years, agree to interact with his family. So somehow, Lukas had to trick him into doing so.

Lukas couldn’t thank his mother for much. But by learning to survive under the oppression of a psychopath, he himself had become a master of deceit and manipulation. He supposed he could thank her for that as he tucked Abigail’s letter in his pocket. Evan would never lay eyes upon it.

Lukas returned to the post office. Snatching a pen and paper from the front desk, he began drafting a letter of his own.

*

“This sounds like a job for Ms. Fontaine,” said Evan, tossing the contract onto his desk.

“No,” argued Lukas, “it sounds like a job for _you_ and you know it! A child’s life is at stake, Evan. Are we really going to sit around and wait for Alaine to get back from Evik, or are we going to mobilize and find this kid before something bad happens?”

The two were in Evan’s office, Evan seated at his desk with a stack of new contracts before him. Lukas leaned against the wall nearby with a pear in his hand. He chewed another bite as Evan replied, “I don’t take contracts from the blue kingdom, period. You know that. I’ll send Balthazaar, he’ll do fine.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Lukas exclaimed over a full mouth, bits of pear flying forth. “An innocent child’s gone missing, and you’re going to send a guy with no tracking skills whatsoever? You know damn well you could sniff out that kid in a matter of hours.”

“They don’t like my kind over there, Lukas,” Evan argued, agitation creeping into his voice. “The only thing Evangeline Kingdom hates more than a merryman is a lycanthrope. If the Evangelite Guard finds out who and what I am, I’ll swing from my neck in front of a crowd of gawking hillbillies. You didn’t grow up there, you wouldn’t understand.”

Lukas shook his head, swallowing the bite. “You’re right, I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t understand when you became such a coward! Think about it: how are you going to feel when Balthazaar trudges back to this office and tells you he couldn’t find the kid in time? Shit, how is _Balthazaar_ going to feel? Don’t put him in that position! You’re being selfish!”

The captain opened his mouth to speak, but it seemed he had no argument, for he quickly closed it and sighed through his nostrils. He was breaking down. Lukas knew he could use the man’s guilt complex against him, and it was working like a charm.

He continued, “Listen. If you take this contract, I’ll come with you as security. In fact, I insist. I won’t even ask for a cut of the pay.”

Evan looked up at him, green eyes still bloodshot and weary from his transformation last night. “It isn’t like you to be so passionate,” he mentioned. “Why is this so important to you?”

Lukas hesitated. A roulette of lies spun through his head, but he decided to answer truthfully, “Because _you’re_ important to me, you oaf.”

His next words were a bit less than truthful. “I know if that kid turns up dead and you didn’t do absolutely everything in your power to prevent it, that guilt is going to haunt you for a long, long time. Am I right?”

Evan dropped his head into his hands. He scrubbed his fingers against his face as he groaned, “Damn it, Lukas…”

“Yes or no, am I right?”

“Yes…” the captain sighed. “You’re right. As usual.”

“Of course I am,” replied Lukas, swiping the contract off the desk. He tapped the core of his pear against it and added, “So, pack your bags and we’ll see if we can’t finish this job in, say, three days or less.”

Evan nodded, slowly rising from his chair. “Very well. I suppose in the interest of time, we should call upon Isaac and his bird?”

“Whatever gets us there the fastest.” Lukas shrugged and tossed the remains of his pear out the window. “I’ll talk to Isaac. Why don’t you find Ginger and see if she’ll take care of the paperwork while we’re gone?”

The captain agreed, then the two left the office and parted ways. Lukas felt quite pleased with himself as he made his way to Evan’s little stone house.

In reality, there was no missing child. The contract was a fake, drawn up by Lukas back in Woodborne. He even convinced the postmaster to stamp its envelope, making it look all the more official. Evan would have recognized his penmanship, so he painstakingly wrote it with his left, non-dominant hand.

The contract was from a very wealthy Evangelite couple, promising gobs of gold for the return of their missing child. The child disappeared somewhere in Evangeline Capital, which was a place Evan certainly did not want to be. But Lukas Fanaka, master manipulator, knew how to pull his heartstrings just right.

Now, he just had to get Isaac in on his plan.

*


	2. Tricked into a Townhouse

**[CHAPTER 2: TRICKED INTO A TOWNHOUSE]**

The Blue Valley was named for its vast, blue sky, which was unobstructed by trees from the rolling plains below.

Lukas peered through the window of Shadow’s gazebo, looking down at the acres upon acres of farmland. He could see workers in the fields, like little ants from such a height. They were rushing to harvest the last of their crops before winter.

Evan sat on the floor with his nose in a book. This exquisite landscape hardly impressed him. It was too familiar, and not in a good way.

He wasn’t happy about being in Evangeline Kingdom again. But Lukas was right, he thought. The sooner they found this lost little girl, the sooner they could go home.

First, they needed to meet with the child’s parents for more information. More specifically, something that carried her scent so that Evan’s lycanthrope nose could pick up a trail. They’d find her alive if they were lucky, and possibly apprehend a kidnapper. That would make all this trouble worth it, thought Evan.

Isaac rode upon Shadow’s back as she soared through the sky. He was bundled up in a thick leather coat to protect him from the chilly autumn wind, as were his crewmen.

Isaac started counting dragons when they crossed the border. Now there were simply too many and he’d lost count. They glided on bat-like wings, these reptilian beasts, with passengers upon their backs.

Most of these passengers were Evangelite soldiers. They were dragoneers, the best of the best in Evangeline’s military. They piloted sleek, agile dragons with green scales and hooked beaks.

Then there were the cargo dragons, so massive that they dwarfed even the great elephants of the Midland Savannah. These long-necked behemoths carried dozens of passengers in gazebos upon their backs or containers of heavy cargo in their front claws. Isaac cried out in wonder when he saw one hauling an entire catapult through the sky.

The capital city’s dragonport was busy, to say the least. Isaac carefully piloted Shadow down to the vast, dirt runway. He saw no other rocs here. He figured they must have been a rare sight in this region when a crowd of attendants flocked forth to gawk at his.

He passed some coins to one of them, then the attendant led Shadow away to a stable. Lukas and Evan stepped out of the gazebo with heavy bags on their backs.

They both pulled face-wraps over the bottom halves of their faces before doing so. Lukas did so because mercenary or not, he was still related to a Matuzan king, and he was ripe for being held ransom should anyone shady enough recognize him.

As for Evan, he hid his face because he simply didn’t know if he was a wanted man in this kingdom or not. Had his family reported him for the murder of his father? Had they reported him as a lycanthrope? He had no way of knowing.

Surely after two decades, the case had gone cold and he’d hardly be recognizable anymore…But it was a chance he wasn’t willing to take.

Isaac pushed his flight goggles onto his head and spit the bugs out of his mouth. His curly black hair stuck out every which way, having been abused by the wind for the last several hours. He wore a coat over his leather armor, and so too did Lukas. Evan was clad in his bulkier steel armor, kept warm by the fancy blue cape he got for his birthday last spring.

Perhaps they were in no danger yet, but they had no idea what awaited them later. Besides, it was best if they presented themselves to their clients looking as tough and competent as they claimed they were.

Evan pulled the hood of his cloak over his head as Lukas and Isaac buttoned their jackets. The autumn air was bitter-cold, but the weather was fair as they made their way into the city.

Evangeline Capital was one of the largest and grandest cities in all the great kingdoms. There was no other like it, with its tall stone towers, its arching bridges over the canals, and its vivid blue rooftops. The entire city was made of stone, and for good reason, as fire-breathing siege dragons were native to the area.

All of Evangeline Kingdom was frozen in the era of swords and bows. It hadn’t changed in centuries, and the capital was no exception. Having outsourced all of its industry to Zareen Empire to the east, the blue kingdom kept its waters clear and its pollution minimal.

There were no automobiles on these cobblestone streets. No advanced machinery, no plastics production, and no arcane technologies. Only horses and wagons, as well as the manure-shoveling slaves that patrolled behind them.

Electricity was a luxury that only Evangeline’s wealthier classes could take advantage of. It was drawn from the massive waterwheels that lined all four rivers branching out from Capital Lake.

As the mercenaries passed over a tall, arching bridge, they could see a glimpse of the lake to their right. To their left, they saw Queen Indiga’s castle looming over the rest of the city. The lake must have looked magnificent from its topmost floors.

But the crew was not headed towards the castle. Instead, they travelled down a scenic, cozy little street lined with autumnal trees and rows of two-story stone houses. Each house was identical except for the colors of the trim around the doors and windows. Lukas glanced at the slip of paper in his hand, searching for the address scrawled on it.

Evan let Lukas lead the charge on this job. That way, he was free to mentally check out as much as possible. His stomach twisted up the moment they crossed the border and it hadn’t untwisted yet. His sickening headache was only getting worse by the minute. He knew he wasn’t going to feel okay until the job was done and they went home.

Chestnuts crunched under the mercenaries’ boots, littering the sidewalk among all the orange and red leaves. They jumped with a start as a dog suddenly began to bark. It did so ferociously, rushing up to a gate blocking an alleyway between houses. It pushed its drooling maw through the bars, black eyes fixated directly on Evan.

Evan briefly glanced at the animal and walked a little faster. As silly as it was, it was all he could do not to bark back. He remembered a time in his childhood when he loved dogs. Now they just made him nervous, and his affliction obviously made them feel the same.

“I think this is it,” said Lukas, pointing to a house no different than the others. The trim around its windows and doors was as blue as the sky. Metal numbers were nailed to the front door: 425, matching that on the paper.

Reluctantly, Evan followed Lukas and Isaac to the front steps. “You knock,” he insisted, and Lukas rapped on the door. The trio pulled their facewraps down, removing their hats and hoods to make a good impression.

Showing up at someone’s house looking like a pack of criminals was never a good plan. They learned that the hard way when a client got spooked and bashed Glenvar with an iron cudgel.

They waited on the stone doorstep for a few seconds. Then the door swung open, and behind it stood a boy probably no older than Isaac, but quite a bit bigger. He was fair-skinned with shaggy brown hair and green eyes, wearing a blue long-sleeved garment typical of the region. He was on the heftier side, his shoulders broad as a barn and his jaw square as a brick.

The boy jumped a little when he saw the armored trio before him. He said nothing, so Lukas greeted, “Hey there. Freelance Good Guys. We’re here to speak with, uh…the mister and missus of the house.”

Brows suddenly arching, the boy opened the door wider and stepped aside. “Oh yeah, come in,” he said. The mercenaries did so and he closed the door behind them.

Not three steps into the house and a puffy white dog launched itself off the couch, straight towards Evan. It exploded into a barking fit, clamping its jaws on the captain’s boot.

The dog was smaller than most cats and clearly no threat to anyone. Still, Evan’s nerves buzzed like lightning under his skin. His lycanthropy urged him to sink his teeth into the scruff of its neck and shake it about like a ragdoll.

“Stuffy, no! You stupid mutt!” the boy scolded, swiping the dog off the floor. He struggled to pry it off Evan’s boot, and even after he did, the animal wriggled and snarled in his arms.

The boy apologized, “Sorry about that! I swear, he’s never acted like this before! I don’t know what’s wrong with him today…” Then he quickly whisked the dog away with him down the hallway, calling, “Mama! Those guys are here!”

The trio of mercenaries were left alone in the quaint sitting room, with plank walls of white and high-end furniture of blue. They exchanged awkward glances as they slowly set their bags on the floor. Evan scrubbed at his forehead and groaned, “This is such a bad idea…I shouldn’t be here…”

Lukas was just about to reassure him, but just then, they saw someone rushing down the stairs. Lukas and Isaac shared a quick glance at one another, then preemptively stepped behind Evan to block the doorway.

The person on the stairs stopped half-way down. She locked eyes with Evan and froze there, jaw falling slack. She was a portly, strong-bodied woman, likely in her forties. Her hair was wrapped in a floral-patterned headscarf, all but her copper-colored bangs. She was clad in a simple long-sleeved dress.

Evan looked back at her, and the two of them wore the very same expression. They blanched as if they were each looking at a ghost.

Lukas had never seen Abigail before. But he knew immediately that this woman must have been Evan’s sister, for they looked so much alike that if he didn’t know better, he’d say she was just Evan in makeup, a wig, and a dress. She was not what he’d call a “pretty” woman. Perhaps “handsome” was a better word, or “brawny”, or “robust”.

She took another slow, cautious step down the stairs. “It’s you…” she gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth. Her green eyes sparkled with tears. “By Gaia, it’s really you…!”

She took another step forth. Evan took one back. He hadn’t blinked since he laid eyes on her, sweat now beading upon his brow. Lukas noticed the slight tremor quaking his hands.

“Evan,” said Abigail, voice creaking with emotion, “I thought I’d never see you again! I-I thought…”

She took another step towards him, and apparently it was one step too many. The captain suddenly turned and bolted for the door. Lukas and Isaac expected as much, so they threw themselves in his path and blocked the exit.

It didn’t deter him as much as they hoped. The two cried out in pain, wheezing as he slammed his armored body against them.

“Please! Don’t! I just want to talk!” cried Abigail. Her pleas fell on deaf ears, for Evan was still desperately trying to escape.

He fumbled for the doorknob. Lukas blocked it with his body and growled through gnashed teeth, “Stop this, Evan! You’re going to calm down and talk to your sister right now! You owe it to her!”

Evan’s face flushed red, either in shame or anger, or possibly both as he tried wrestling his crewmen away from his exit. “You _knew_!” He snarled at Lukas. “You knew about this, you son of a bitch! You damned traitor! How could you do this to me?”

“Evan, stop! You’re crushing me!” Isaac wheezed, pinned under the captain’s bulk as he shoved himself against the door.

“You did the same thing to me last year! This is for your own good!” argued Lukas.

“That wasn’t the same at all!” Evan bellowed. “What is _wrong_ with you, Lukas?”

“Just calm down and let us explain!”

“Evan…!” Isaac pleaded, barely audible over his crewmens’ shouting.

The young man fell to the floor as Evan finally backed off him, if only to seize Lukas by the throat and throw him to the side. The archer staggered back and took a flying tumble over the back of a chair. His long legs slammed into the coffee table, shattering the fine tea set sitting on its center.

Evan wrenched the door open and stormed outside. Isaac wouldn’t allow him to get far. He scrambled back to his feet and lunged through the doorway, tackling the captain’s legs. They both tumbled and rolled onto the sidewalk, leaves flying in their wake.

“Isaac!” Evan growled, struggling to stand once more. But Isaac quickly grabbed his right boot, then pulled and twisted with all his might. Evan’s leg detached completely—or so it seemed. It was not his leg, but simply his prosthetic that Isaac stole from him, and now he was running back to the house with it.

Isaac stopped near the doorway where Abigail was standing, begging her brother to speak with her. Evan sat there on the sidewalk among the fallen leaves, missing a limb and looking just as pathetic as he felt. An unwanted memory flashed in his mind. He remembered that brisk autumn morning he met Horace, sitting helpless with his leg caught in the bear trap.

What could Evan do now? Hop away on one leg? Crawl away like an animal? He considered it, but then Lukas was bolting towards him from the house.

“Evan!” the archer barked, clearly fed-up with the situation. He straddled his captain, dropping his full weight upon him as he grasped him by his cloak. He gave the man a shake and continued, “You’re being a damned fool! Stand up, dust yourself off…” He pointed towards Abigail. “…and face her like a man! It’s about high time you did, don’t you think?”

A long silence passed between them all. Evan looked at Lukas, glaring angrily back at him. He looked at Isaac, holding his false leg hostage. He looked at Abigail, standing there with tears in her eyes. Then he noticed, all around him, the nosy neighbors peering through their windows. Several dogs were barking from places unseen.

He really had made a fool of himself. Worse yet, he’d been betrayed and defeated by his own crew.

“I…” he began breathlessly, swallowing the acid creeping up his throat. “Okay. Okay, you got me. I’m calm. I won’t run.”

Lukas furrowed his brow, shooting him a look of doubt. “You sure about that?”

Evan’s voice cracked when he replied, “Yes. I-I promise. Give me my leg, please.”

Lukas stared him down for a moment, trying to read his expression. Every muscle in the man’s face was strained. He looked on the verge of tears, or possibly a nervous breakdown.

Lukas decided he couldn’t have been lying in such a state and turned back to Isaac. He tipped his head towards Evan, then cautiously, Isaac approached them with the prosthetic.

Evan slipped it back on, feeling more ashamed by the second. He didn’t even want to flee anymore. He just wanted to get out of the street and away from the scrutiny of these nosy neighbors. Lukas and Isaac helped him back up. Together, they returned to the house where Abigail awaited.

*

Once Evan calmed down, Lukas came clean to him about his trickery.

He explained that Abigail had reached out to him with a letter, but Lukas knew he would never respond on his own. So he admitted to duping Evan by forging a fake contract, then writing back to Abigail himself.

In his letter, he explained that he was not Evan, but one of his crewmen, and he would at least _try_ to bring Evan to her using any means necessary…even if it meant betraying his trust.

But Evan still had questions. He sat on one of the plush, blue couches between Lukas and Isaac, Abigail sitting in the chair across from them. He turned to his sister and asked her, “How on Gaia did you _find_ me?”

Abigail dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief, taking care not to smear her makeup any worse. “I’ve hired so many investigators over the years, Evan,” she sniffled. “Not a single one could track you down, but they did gather some clues for me. One of them was familiar with your company, and he said you might be the same Evan Atlas who owned it. You have no idea how many men share your name in this damned region…” she chuckled a bit through her tears.

“Anyway,” she continued, “he gave me your company’s contact information. I was still doubtful, and I didn’t want to reach out unless I was sure it was you. Edmund’s cousin happened to be heading to Woodborne anyway for his own business…”

She shrugged. “So I asked him if he could hang around the post office for a few days and watch your company’s box. He saw a few people access it, but none of them matched your description…”

Evan sighed, scrubbing his fingers against his eyes. So, Lorenso—if that was his real name—had betrayed him too. He should have trusted his instincts after all.

Abigail went on, “Then, I guess on the third day, he finally saw you. He was going to follow you home, but he told me you caught on to him. He still got enough information though, enough that I felt confident writing you. So I did.”

Evan dropped his hands away from his face, shooting a glare at Lukas. “And then _you_ intercepted the letter,” he grumbled. “How long have you been rooting through my mail, Lukas?”

“That was the first and only time, I swear to you,” Lukas replied, brows drooping with sincerity. “I recognized your sister’s name. That was the only reason I did it. You can’t sit here and say you know what’s good for you, because you don’t. You _need_ to be here. You _need_ to settle this with your family, or else the grief is going to keep eating you and eating you until there’s nothing left.”

“You have no idea how happy you’ve made me today, Evan,” Abigail told him, forcing a smile through her tears. “Please, don’t be angry at him. Your friend obviously cares about you as much as I do. I could tell just by the letter he wrote to me.”

Evan regarded everyone in the room with a bitter scowl. “I don’t appreciate the lot of you ganging up and conspiring against me,” he told them.

Abigail furrowed her copper brows. “Well, maybe you needed it,” she said bluntly. “You might be the size of an ogre now, but deep inside, I think you’re still a scared little boy. Why did you run from me? What is it you’re afraid of?”

After a moment to articulate his scattered thoughts, Evan replied quietly, “I’m afraid of the Evangeline Guard finding out what I am. I’m afraid of being lynched in the middle of town. I have no business setting foot in this kingdom again, Abby. I made a mistake by coming here, not even knowing if you still loved me or not.”

Rising from her seat, Abigail rounded the table and dropped to her knees before him. He flinched slightly when she grasped his hand in her own and asked, “Do you remember what I said to you, back when we were kids?” Expression strained, Evan shook his head.

Abigail squeezed his hand and continued, “I promised I’d always love you, no matter what you were. Do you really think I love Evangeline’s stupid laws more than I love my baby brother? Why on Gaia would you ever think I’d turn you in to the Guard?”

Evan sucked in a deep breath, tears threatening the corners of his eyes. “Because what I did,” he began, voice quaking, “is completely unforgivable.”

Shaking her head, Abigail stood up and threw her arms around him. “That isn’t true at all. Do you know why?”

She planted her hands firmly on his armored shoulders, looking him in the eyes when she told him, “Because _I_ forgive you. I forgive you, and so does Mama. Whatever hard feelings we had about it were buried with Papa, and neither of us ever looked back.”

Evan’s lip quivered, face growing pinker by the second. He nudged each of his crewmen and ordered, “Leave. Now.”

Without a word or a moment’s hesitation, Lukas and Isaac stood up and awkwardly shuffled down the hallway. Once they disappeared into the kitchen, Evan burst into tears and pulled his sister into a crushing embrace.

“I missed you, Abby!” he sobbed against her shoulder. “I miss Mama! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…!”

Abigail squeezed him back. “It’s okay. We’re here.”

“Papa’s not here! I hate myself for what I did! I miss him so much!”

“Hush,” said Abigail, pulling out of his grip. She combed his short hair down with her fingers, offering a gentle smile when she said, “Mama and I both know it was an accident. It’s long gone in the past. We can’t change it now, can we?”

“It still hurts,” Evan sniffled. “It hurts terribly.”

Abigail sat beside him and sighed, “I know. This wound has been left to fester for a long, long time. I want to take you to Mama’s house tomorrow, and once you talk to her, I think we’ll all finally start to heal.”

Evan wiped his leaky face with the ball of his hand. Once he conquered the quiver in his voice, he asked, “Does she still live in Greenhearst?”

“She does.” Abigail nodded. “Same house, still running the farm and all that.”

“By herself?”

There was a slight hesitation in Abigail’s voice when she replied, “Well, no. Edmund and I bought her some help from Kelvingyard. She has at least ten slaves helping her tend the property now.”

Evan’s brows jumped. “Eddie must be doing well for himself then.”

“Yes, very well. He inherited several properties when his parents passed. He’s been leasing them out, selling them, buying new ones, things of that nature.”

“So, he’s a landlord.”

“He calls himself a ‘property manager’. But yes, he’s a landlord.”

“Scum,” Evan grumbled.

Abigail couldn’t help but chuckle, just the faintest gust through her nostrils. “I’m sorry for the way he and his brothers treated you when we were growing up. I don’t expect you to forgive him. But I do want you to know that he forgives you.”

“Forgives _me_? What have I ever done to him?” blurted Evan.

His sister floundered for a moment, then replied, “Well, nothing to him, personally. But when I got your letter about Papa, I was very distraught. I cried for weeks, and Edmund cursed your name for upsetting me. But once my emotions calmed and I got my head on straight, I had a long discussion with him about it. I’m not angry with you, nor is he. In fact, I know he’ll be happy to see you again.”

Evan let out a soft groan, resting his elbows upon his knees. “He must know what I am, then,” he muttered.

“Yes, and Connor knows too. I discussed it with him a few days ago when I got Mr. Lukas’ letter.”

“Connor? Who’s that?”

“Oh!” Abigail’s eyes rounded. She quickly stood up and said, “I haven’t introduced you! Come with me, into the kitchen. Connor! Come here, please!” she hollered as she led Evan down the hall and into the rustic kitchen.

Lukas and Isaac were already present, taking up two of the four seats at the wooden dining table. The hefty boy from before soon appeared in the doorway. Abigail stood behind him, placing her hands on his broad shoulders with a smile.

“Evan,” she began, “this is your nephew, Connor. He just turned fifteen last month. Connor, dear, this is your Uncle Evan.”

All three mercenaries’ eyes rounded like dinner plates. Lukas and Isaac exchanged surprised glances, all while Evan stared slack-jawed at this relative he never knew he had.

The boy smiled, looked a bit shy when he told Evan, “I knew it had to be you. You got the big ol’ Atlas jaw, just like me ‘n Mama!”

“Connor…” Abigail gently scolded. This brought out a sudden laugh from Lukas.

“I have a nephew,” Evan said breathlessly. The tiniest smile crept onto his face as he turned back to his crewmen and said, “I’m an uncle, guys. How about that?” Then he approached Connor and extended his hand for a shake. “I’m happy to meet you, Connor. Your mother’s a good woman, so I trust you’re a good young man.”

The boy shook his hand and snickered, “Yeah, I’m a priest of Love and Light…”

“He takes after his father, I’ll put it that way,” Abigail mentioned with a long-suffering roll of her eyes.

She patted her son’s shoulder before pulling out a chair for Evan. “Edmund’s out messing around with one of his properties, but he should be back in the next hour or so. Please, make yourselves at home. I’ll have some food on the table in a bit. Lon! Lon, we have guests!” she called through another doorway.

Then Abigail sat in the fourth chair, pulling Connor into her lap. The boy flailed and growled, “Mama! Quit it!”

Abigail simply laughed and planted a kiss on his head, cooing, “My baby boy, isn’t he precious?”

The mercenaries tried not to snicker. Finally, Abigail released Connor from her iron grip and told him, “Go get some extra chairs for you and your father. I want you to sit down and visit with our guests, not hide in your room like a troll.”

The boy grumbled as he passed through the doorway. As he did, he shoved by a goblin passing through at the same time, nearly knocking her over. The goblin shot an icy glare at him as she regained her balance. She stopped before Abigail and tipped her head as if awaiting orders.

The wrinkles on her green face and her long, drooping ears indicated that she was in the autumn of her life. Her dirty apron and iron shackles indicated that she was a slave.

“Lon,” began Abigail, “can you whip up a few meat pies for our guests? A couple dozen cookies too.”

Lon paid Abigail a shallow bow, replied, “At once, Ma’am,” and then set about loading more logs into the iron woodstove, already crackling with flame.

Evan looked between Lon and Abigail for a moment. He hesitated, then asked his sister delicately, “How, uh…how much help do you have around here?”

“Oh, just two,” Abigail answered flippantly. “Lon is our house-hob. Then we have Tam, who stays in the cabin out back. He takes care of the horses and maintains the property. Does a much better job of it than my husband, if you ask me,” she chuckled.

Evan slowly nodded. He glanced back at his crewmen, looking just as awkward as he felt. After twenty years away from this kingdom, he was experiencing a touch of culture shock all over again. Quite frankly, he was embarrassed about his heritage, especially now as it was on full display in front of his friends.

Connor soon returned with a wooden chair in each hand, placing one beside Abigail and sitting in the other beside Isaac. Isaac looked towards Evan, who glanced at Connor and tipped his head as if encouraging him to say hello.

So Isaac extended a hand to the boy and greeted, “Um, hey. I’m Isaac.” He gestured towards Lukas. “And that’s Lukas. Evan’s our captain.”

Connor’s jaw fell slack as he shook his hand. “He’s _your_ captain too? You’re a mercenary?” he asked.

Isaac simply nodded.

Connor’s eyebrows nearly jumped off his face when he blurted, “How? You look younger than me!”

“Nope, I’m _six_teen,” Isaac told him proudly. “I go everywhere they go and do all the jobs they do.”

Connor turned to his mother and exclaimed, “Mama! You hear that? This kid’s a real mercenary!” He turned back to Isaac and asked, “Do you have a sword?”

“Sure do,” said Isaac, but before he could unsheathe the sword at his hip, Evan stopped him.

“Uh-uh!” the captain barked. “No weapons at the table!”

Abigail turned to her son and said, “Connor, why don’t you show Isaac around the property? Don’t go too far, though. Your father will be home soon.”

With broad smiles, the boys got up and quickly disappeared down the hall.

Evan called after them, “Behave yourself, Isaac! I mean it! Don’t break anything!”

“They seem like fast friends,” said Abigail. “I’m so relieved! Connor’s been getting in so many fights at school, no one even showed up to his birthday party last month. All the students are afraid of him!”

“Hm. Sounds familiar,” Evan mumbled.

Abigail sighed, leaning back in her chair, “I know, I know…Edmund was the exact same way.”

“What’s Eddie like now?” asked Evan.

Abigail paused. Reluctantly, she replied, “I admit, he’s about the same. Still a bully. Only now he bullies people with his money instead of his fists.”

Evan shook his head and sighed, “Abigail…”

“I know,” Abigail repeated. “Whatever you’re about to say, trust me, I _know_. I’ll talk to you about it later. In the meantime, would you two like something to drink? I’ve got beer, cranberry juice, cow’s milk, goat’s milk…”

“What time is it?” asked Evan.

Abigail glanced at the grandfather clock down the hall. “A few minutes after noon.”

“Beer,” the mercenaries answered simultaneously.

*

Isaac followed Connor around the house. It was obviously an upper-class residence, with fine furniture and electric lights in all three bedrooms. Despite the extra bedroom, Connor showed Isaac the tiny attic where Lon slept, which contained just a bedroll surrounded by boxes of storage.

Once he was familiar with the interior, he followed Connor outside to the back yard. The large, grassy area was enclosed by a tall fence. Lush gardens lined the perimeter, clearly tended daily. Near the back part of the fence was a red stable with two paddocks for horses. A tiny wooden shack rested beside it.

Connor pointed to the shack and said, “See that cabin? That’s where our hob, Tam, sleeps.” Then to the stable. “And that’s where we keep the horses. Purebred Evangeline war horses, both of them!”

Isaac squinted at the shack. It looked well-maintained, but still far too small for a person to be comfortable inside. It was more of a shack than a cabin, and more of a shed than a shack. “Tam doesn’t sleep in the house?” he asked.

The Galanis boy shook his head and replied, “Nah, we already got a house-slave. Tam’s a field slave.”

“How come they both can’t sleep inside though?” Isaac gestured back towards the house. “There’s that whole extra bedroom that no one’s using. Couldn’t he sleep in there?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Connor told him. “Papa said you don’t want too many hobs in the house or they start getting snotty. Tam and Lon are already spoiled. We don’t hit them or anything, like the slaves on grandmama’s farm. She’s got so many hobs up there, Papa had to hire a slavemaster to stay on the property and watch them!”

Looking this way and that, Connor plucked a cigarette from a crushed box in his pocket. He pulled a match from his other pocket, struck it against his shoe, and lit the end. He took a drag, blowing the smoke away from Isaac. “Don’t tell my Mama about this, okay?” he said, then he handed the cigarette to the mercenary.

Isaac waved his hand. “No, thanks. Ev—I mean, the captain says it makes your lungs sick. I gotta have good lungs to be a mercenary, you know?”

Connor’s brows jumped. “Right, right…” he mumbled. He took one more drag, then tossed the cigarette on the stone patio and stomped it out as he explained, “I don’t smoke that often, really. Like, barely ever. These aren’t even mine, my friend just left them here, so…”

He coughed a few times. Once he cleared his throat, he asked, “Hey, want to see something really class?”

“Class?”

“Yeah. You know, something fine? Good? Come on, I’ll show you.”

Connor led Isaac back into the house. The two climbed the staircase and entered Connor’s bedroom. The area was of modest size, with one square window overlooking the back yard. There was a bed, a dresser, a desk, and so much clutter littering the floor that the boys had no choice but to step on it.

Closing the door behind them, Connor approached his bed and slipped his hand under the mattress. He pulled out what looked to be a school math book. But when he opened it, Isaac saw the inside had been hollowed out, making room for loose scraps of paper.

“Don’t tell my mama about this either,” Connor grinned. Isaac kneeled beside him. He saw now that the scraps were pictures torn from lewd magazines. Some pictures were drawn. Others were photographs taken with the camera-machines Isaac saw in Zareen Empire. Such machines were not legal to own in Evangeline Kingdom without a special license.

Isaac let out a hearty laugh. He leafed through the scraps, finding everything from simple pinups to filthy fetishes on display. “Where’d you get this stuff?” he asked.

Connor told him nonchalantly, “Some fella in town sells it.”

“To you? You aren’t even sixteen yet.”

“Yeah, but he never asks. That’s why I buy from him.” Connor picked up a graphic photo involving a male satyr and a female elf. A wry grin crept across his face when he said, “Bet you’ve never done anything like this before.”

“I have so,” Isaac replied quickly. “Not with an elf, though. She was a nymph.”

“A nymph?” Connor blurted, eyes rounding. “Really? And you lived to tell about it?”

Isaac sighed, “Barely…” He decided to change the subject, if only to push the memory away. “What about you?”

Connor seemed to hesitate. “Oh, uh, yeah. I’ve done it before, I can’t even count how many times! But my girlfriend, um, she just moved out of town, see. So it’s been a while.”

“You have a girlfriend? Wow, what’s her name?”

“Her name? Her name is Angeline. She lives in, uh, Greenhearst. She’s a real class girl. She’s the prettiest girl you could imagine. Long legs, big chest…She has it all.”

“Nice! Hope she’s not sour about your stash.” Isaac grinned. He leafed through a few more pages and chuckled, “Some of this stuff is _weird_, Connor…”

Face flushing pink, Connor snatched the papers from his hand and stuffed them back in his book. “Yeah, well, the nudie-hocker sells the pictures in brown paper. You don’t even know what you’ve got ‘til you already paid for them. Sometimes you get beautiful women, and sometimes you get weird foreign shit with hobs and ogres. I can’t wait until next year. Then I can just go to the shop and buy whatever I want.”

“Being an adult isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, trust me,” Isaac told him. “It’s kind of stupid sometimes. I miss being a kid. Stuff was simpler.”

“What are you talking about? Being a kid is awful! I have to buy bootleg nudie pictures from some troll at the town cesspit—meanwhile, you can just walk into a store and buy all the porno and booze you want!”

Isaac shrugged. “I could. But when you’re a merc, most of your gold just goes back into your gear. Beer tastes like piss anyway. Captain said it rots your guts too.”

“It does?” Connor paused. “Heh, Mama’s in trouble then. She puts away three steins a night, at least.”

With a nod, Isaac told him, “A lot of the Guys drink a lot too, even though they tell me not to. There’s a guy on our crew named Glenvar, says he’s been getting drunk every day since he was thirteen!”

“Every day? How is this guy a mercenary?”

Isaac laughed, “The bar’s lower than you think. We only have three rules...” He counted on his fingers. “Help those who need it, don’t hurt innocents, and kill only when you have to.” He paused. “Oh, and no opening another merc’s mail.”

Connor tipped his head towards the door. “So that Lukas guy is fired now, right?”

The mercenary laughed again, “Yeah, right! This one time, Lukas and the captain got super trashed and brawled in the middle of the compound. Lukas swung on the captain with a hatchet and he _still_ didn’t get fired. That guy’s been in the company for like, twenty years. He’ll be here no matter what he does.” He shook his head. “Nobody likes him except the captain. I don’t know what he sees in that peckerhead.”

The boys heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Connor hastily shoved the scraps back in his book, then stuffed the book under his mattress. The door opened, Abigail standing on the other side.

“Boys, lunch is re—” she began, than paused as her eyes swept the room. “Connor, this room is a pig sty! Didn’t I tell you to clean it?”

“It’s a work-in-progress,” her son told her, wearing a cheeky grin.

Abigail pointed her calloused finger at him and spoke through her teeth, “You’re dancing on thin ice, boy. No woman wants a man who can’t pick up after himself.”

Connor snapped back, “Does no woman have taste?”

Swinging her finger out the door, Abigail told him sternly, “Go downstairs and eat. Now.”

*

The Galanis’ dinner table was packed that day, with six hungry people and enough meat pies to feed them all twice. In the center of the table was a platter of chocolate chip cookies. Connor reached for one, but Abigail slapped it out of his hand and snapped, “Finish your pie first!”

Edmund Galanis sat among them, having just returned from one of his properties. Though so many years had passed, he didn’t look much different than he did as boy.

Still the same beady eyes and arrow-like nose, still tall and gangly, still dressed as if he were wealthier than he really was. Though these days, his short, dark hair was starting to gray, and he’d grown a thick moustache to match it.

Coming home to see the sickly boy he bullied as a child, now grown into an armored, 300 pound lycanthrope, had been an awkward experience. But he greeted Evan with a strained kind of casualness, and now the two were eating together at the same table.

“Fine armor you got there,” said Edmund, looking Evan up and down. “I take it you’re soldiering for Folkvar these days, or…?”

“No. I’m a mercenary,” explained Evan. “I don’t fight for any government. I fight for whoever needs me.”

“Evan owns the whole company! He’s a very successful businessman!” added Abigail.

At this, Edmund’s dark brows arched. “Really now?”

“Well, no, we _all_ kind of own it,” replied Evan. “Everyone who joins the company owns an equal part. I can’t just, say, suddenly fire someone or sell it under everyone’s noses. We all have to agree to it first.”

“Hm, that is quite a problem…” Edmund grunted, thoughtfully chewing a bite of his meat pie. Once his mouth was clear, he said, “Here’s an idea: you could find common ground with your employees about firing someone nobody is really fond of. Weed out the weakest and least profitable. Not all at once, or else they might gang up on you in revolt, but just a few here and there until you’ve whittled it down to two or three of you.”

He swept his hand towards Lukas and Isaac. “Let’s say, it’s down to you and these fine fellas here. If you sell the company then, your personal profits will be greater. Use that money to start up a new companies identical to the last, and this time, make yourselves the sole owners. That’s what I would do.”

Evan rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Of course you would…” He swallowed another bite, then added, “And it’s not a ‘problem’ to be overcome. I _want_ it to be this way. No one man knows what’s best for everyone, or even what’s best for himself sometimes. I feel it’s good to have equal input from others.”

With a low chuckle and a shake of his head, Edmund replied, “If that’s the way you feel, then you’re no businessman at all.”

“You’re right. I’m not,” Evan told him flatly. “Thank the gods, right?”

If only to break the tension, Abigail called, “Lon! More beer, please!”

The goblin slave rose up from her stool in the corner. She picked up Abigail’s half-empty stein and carried it to the large keg on the counter.

Edmund leaned back in his seat and explained, “Well, I’m quite savvy in the world of business myself. It runs in the family, you see. My brothers own a law firm in Queenswater and my cousin, Lorenso, made his fortune from a single pair of golden yaks!”

“So I heard,” Evan mumbled.

Edmund went on, “As for me, I inherited just a few small plots of land from my parents after they passed. But I bought and sold wisely, and now I’m the proud owner of over twenty properties all across Noalen.”

“You’re a landlord,” Evan said before spooning a bite of food into his mouth.

“I do a lot more than just _own_ the properties, Atlas,” argued Edmund. “I must collect rents, evict tenants, make repairs, things of that nature. ‘Landlord’ is such a crude term with some bad connotations attached to it. I consider myself more of a ‘property manager’.”

“You’re a landlord,” Evan repeated, staring down at his plate. “You hoard land like a greedy lord, robbing the common people of ever getting the chance to own homes. You needn’t explain to me what you do. I understand your profession well.”

Below the table, he felt Lukas kick him in the left shin. Lukas loudly cleared his throat and said, “Mrs. Galanis, your goblin makes a top-notch pie. Thank you for inviting us into your home and feeding us today.”

Abigail smiled. “It’s my pleasure. You’re all welcome to visit us anytime. It’ll be so wonderful to see Mama tomorrow and have the whole family together again! I’m so excited!”

Evan’s gaze remained fixated on his plate. He said nothing, for he’d been rude enough this afternoon and he knew the thoughts in his head had no business being said aloud.

The whole family would _not_ be there, he thought. Foster was missing, it was solely his fault, and he was utterly terrified of confronting Sofia about it.

“Ah, you’re going to visit Sofia tomorrow?” queried Edmund, wiping his beard with a handkerchief. “Mind if I tag along? Class woman, she. I’d like to see how those hobs of hers are doing, make sure they’re not out of line…”

Abigail turned to Evan and asked, “Do you mind if Edmund comes with us?”

Evan opened his mouth to protest. Immediately, he thought better of it, for he suddenly lacked the energy for conflict. “It’s fine,” he agreed quietly.

Edmund smiled with a clap of his hands “Wonderful!” he said, then he turned to Evan. “Your family’s land has appreciated greatly since you’ve been gone, you know. I have big, big plans for that place once we inherit it.”

“Do you?” Evan said flatly, more of a statement than a question.

“Oh, yes,” Edmund went on brightly. “Picture this: the scenic plains of the Blue Valley, clear sky above, and in place of that old farmhouse is an entire village of traditional townhouses! Evangelites are paying a mint to get out of the city these days. Those homes will fill in no time, and with the rent we collect, we’ll be able to move up to the castle district. We could even send Connor to the World Athenaeum for schooling. The road is paved for us, Atlas, all thanks to the sweat of your father’s brow. He was a good man, gods rest his soul. I know he will look down from the stars with pride.”

In that instant, every nerve in Evan’s body seemed to jump. All thoughts of avoiding conflict went out the window. Quickly, automatically, Evan reached across the table and seized Edmund by the collar of his button-up shirt.

“Don’t you talk about my father!” he snarled.

A panic rose among everyone at the table. “Woah, woah, woah! Evan, no!” exclaimed Lukas, rushing to pry his captain’s hand away from Edmund.

Isaac and Abigail stood up too as Connor remained frozen in his seat, watching the commotion through wide eyes. The old slave, Lon, cowered nearby with her face in her hands.

“You and your brothers used to steal his tools and tip his cattle!” Evan growled, just inches from Edmund’s face. “He hated you, Edmund! And if he knew what you were planning to do with his land, he’d pull off his boot and beat you to death with it! You didn’t even know Papa, so how dare you sit here and tell me he’d approve of this disrespect!”

“Evan, for Gaia’s sake! Let go of him!” shouted Abigail. She pinched her brother’s ear and gave it a hard twist. Evan’s face contorted in pain, then he released Edmund and sunk back into his seat, raising his hands in defeat. Lukas and Isaac held his shoulders as if to pin him there.

Edmund’s panicked eyes shifted between everyone at the table as he settled back in his chair, straightening his wrinkled collar. One of his shirt buttons had come undone.

“I know this has been an emotional day for everyone,” Abigail said breathlessly. Her gaze flicked towards Evan as she continued, “I know there are going to be difficult moments. But can we _please_ agree to let the past be the past? There’s no sense in picking at decades-old wounds. We are all here to heal. All of us, together. I think this is a good time to pray for guidance.” She took Evan’s hand in her right and Edmund’s in her left, giving them both a squeeze.

Abigail took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Evan, Edmund, and everyone else at the table followed suit. Even Lon joined them from her stool in the corner. Closing her eyes, Abigail began to pray aloud, “Spirit of Gaia, our great and benevolent creator, we ask you for strength in these difficult times…”

While his mother was preoccupied, Connor snatched two cookies and shoved them into his mouth. Evan was raised in a Lindist household like most Evangelites, though he hadn’t prayed since he left home.

He assumed he had no right to speak to his maker anymore, after not only rejecting the form She had given him, but for cannibalizing one of Her innocent children as well.

Still, he respectfully closed his eyes and remained silent as Abigail continued, “…We are ever grateful for the bounty you provide for us each day, and more recently, for reuniting us with our dear Evan. Though he has made poor choices in the past, I know you can see the goodness in his heart. So please, Mother Gaia, bless him with courage as he atones for the mistakes he’s made. Praise to She, the holy Spirit of Gaia.”

With that, Abigail released Evan and Edmund’s hands and returned to her seat. The guests gradually returned to their meal as a long silence passed, save for chewing and clinking dishes.

For the first time since contracting lycanthropy, Evan’s stomach didn’t yearn for food. He had completely lost his appetite.

“Abigail,” he said, rising to his feet, “I’m very sorry, but I think I need to lie down for bit.”

“I think you do too,” mentioned Lukas.

Abigail replied with a nod, “Of course. The guest room is upstairs, the first door on the right. Lon, will you bring their bags up for them?”

Lon began to stand up.

“No way, our gear weighs a ton!” Isaac told her, gesturing to the arthritic old goblin. “Don’t worry about it, Lon. We got it!”

Lon paid him a grateful smile and sat down again.

*

The guest room was as quaint as the rest of the house. A double bed piled with quilts took up most of its floor space. Also in this room was a sparsely-filled bookshelf and a dresser with a few random articles of clothing inside. Colorful plates and tapestries decorated the walls.

The trio of mercenaries stepped inside this room and set their heavy bags in the closet. Isaac took a running leap onto the bed and exclaimed, “I get the bed!”

“You get the floor,” Lukas told him sharply. “Move so Evan can rest!”

Isaac rolled off the bed and Evan took his place. The captain flopped down on his back with a long sigh, rubbing a sweaty hand over his equally sweaty forehead. Lukas nudged Isaac and said, “Go see if they need help with the dishes or something. I’ll be down in a while.”

The young man nodded, then rushed out the door. Lukas heard his footsteps thumping down the stairs as he closed the door behind him. The room was dark, for the curtains to the single window were closed. An electric lamp was sitting on the side table beside the bed. Lukas turned it on and the room became illuminated in its soft, warm glow.

Without a word, Lukas began removing Evan’s armor. Evan lie motionless as his cloak, his weapons, and his steel plates were stripped away. He was left in his white, cotton undershirt and leggings. A sock covered his left foot, his prosthetic to the right.

Then Lukas stepped into the closet and began digging through their bags. He removed his own armor and changed into more casual civilian clothes—an orange cotton shirt and thick pants with a leather coat.

Evan let himself be dressed as well without protest, until he was lying there in a blue sweater and dark trousers. If they were to attend dinner later, neither of them wanted to show up in armor like a couple of barbarians.

Evan was left to stare up at the ceiling as Lukas prepared to head out. Before he left, the archer told him, “Rest up. Take a nap, or…do what you need to do. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

“Alright,” Evan replied. It was hardly a whisper.

Lukas floundered near the door for a moment. Then he added, “This is for the best, Evan.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry it hurts.”

Evan didn’t reply, at least nor verbally. Lukas thought he saw him nod a little, though it was hard to tell in the dim lamplight. He wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he just sighed through his nostrils and left, softly closing the door behind him.

There was a brassy clock hanging on the wall above the bed. Evan listened as it tick, tick, ticked away. Each tick seemed deafening to him now, between the knot in his stomach, the pull in his nerves, and the chaos in his head. His eyes drifted towards the window, blue curtains blocking all but a sliver of daylight.

A brief and unwelcome thought crossed his mind, of opening the window and allowing himself to tumble down to the street below. If he landed on his head, perhaps it would be over quickly.

But that was all very dramatic and unnecessary. Should the Evangeline Guard discover his lycanthropy tomorrow, his death was sealed anyway.

After what felt like hours, Evan heard soft, slow footsteps climbing the stairs. An equally soft knock on the door followed.

“Come in,” he said. Slowly, the door creaked open. He saw a wrinkled green face peek in before committing to stepping inside. It was Lon, shuffling in with a plate in her hands. She set it on the side table with the lamp, and upon it was a glass of milk, three chocolate chip cookies, and a robust ham sandwich with a toothpick pierced into it.

Evan sat up to examine the plate. He looked towards Lon, standing there with her hands clutched at her waist and an uncertain expression on her face. “For me?” he asked.

Lon nodded and replied, “Yes, Sir.”

“Who sent you up with this? Abigail?”

Lon shook her head. “No, Sir. It was Master Edmund.”

Evan’s brow wrinkled with befuddlement. He cocked his head a little, said flatly, “Really?” He lifted the top slice of bread, flipping through each layer of ham. He saw what he hoped was just mustard and vinegar. “He didn’t ask you to spit on it or anything, did he?”

The goblin’s uncertain expression gave way to a reserved smile. “No, Sir. He simply asked me to bring you some food. May I fetch anything else for you?”

“Uh, no, thank you,” Evan told her, tipping his head in gratitude. “Tell Eddie I appreciate it.”

The goblin nodded before dismissing herself, disappearing through the doorway. It clicked shut behind her.

Evan’s appetite hadn’t yet returned. Still, he forced himself to eat the offering, for it was only polite. Besides, allowing his stomach to be empty for too long was asking for a disaster. He once read that the longer a lycanthrope denied themselves food, the more lunacy set in.

This proved true after one particularly rough contract, in which Evan was held hostage by bandits for over twelve hours. The cheap brigands neglected to feed him during that time.

When he was finally released, his crew gasped in horror when he snatched a fat cockroach off the wall of their inn room and ate it like a piece of candy, for he could not even wait for his meal to finish cooking.

He remembered the lack of control as he did it, his total indifference at the time. Looking back, his behavior frightened even himself.

Perhaps Edmund was just taking measures to protect his family. There was a monster in his house after all, Evan thought miserably.

*


	3. Blue Country

**[CHAPTER 3: BLUE COUNTRY]**

Dawn’s first light rose over Evangeline Capital. A single beam found its way through the slit of the curtains and onto Evan’s face. His eyes fluttered open, squinting at the guest room’s interior. He half-expected to awake in his own bed at the compound, for all of yesterday felt like a strange and terrible dream.

But it was all very real, and he was forced to face it once more as he swiped his prosthetic leg off the floor and stood up with a grunt. Isaac was still asleep on the floor, wrapped in a quilt. Lukas was nowhere to be found, but the door was slightly ajar. Evan’s lycanthrope ears could hear running water from down the hall.

Behind the next door in the hallway was a small bathroom. Evan leaned against the wall and waited. Before long, Lukas stepped out, freshly washed and dressed in his casual clothes from yesterday.

His long, damp locks fell lank against his head. Evan could tell just by looking at his haggard eyes that he hadn’t slept, but then again, insomnia was the norm for Lukas.

Lukas cocked an eyebrow when he saw Evan, asked, “You’re still here?”

“Afraid so,” Evan replied through a yawn.

“Hm. Thought you’d jump out the window by now,” said Lukas, but there was no bite behind it.

Evan watched him disappear down the stairs, then shook his head and stepped into the bathroom. Lukas was so very perceptive, and sometimes Evan hated it.

In just a couple hours, the entire household was ready to head out to Greenhearst. Edmund offered to buy train tickets, which would get them there by high sun. But it wasn’t necessary, Isaac told him, because the Freelance Good Guys had their own ride.

The six of them hired a carriage to the dragonport, where Isaac retrieved Shadow from her stable. “This is Shadow,” he explained, rubbing the bird’s giant beak. “She flies us everywhere we need to go. She’s really nice! You can pet her if you want.”

The Galanis family stared up at the colossal bird in awe. Waving her hands before her, Abigail told him, “I’ll pass, thank you! But she is a beautiful animal, isn’t she?”

“Quite impressive, yes,” added Edmund. “How much did you pay for this beast, son? She must have cost a fortune!”

Isaac explained, “I didn’t pay anything. I met her when I got kidnapped by the Divine of Hate. He kept us both prisoner in his secret temple in the Serkel Desert, but I stole his magic scythe and used it to escape. Me’ n Shadow have been friends ever since!”

The family stared silently at him for a long moment. Edmund suddenly laughed and clapped a hand on Evan’s shoulder, said, “He had me going there for a minute! That boy’s got a wild sense of humor, Atlas! But really, how much do these birds go for? It could save me a lot of time travelling between my properties.”

A couple port attendants were pushing Shadow’s gazebo towards them on its wooden wheels. Evan passed them each a silver coin and opened the door. “We’ll talk about it on the ride to Greenhearst,” he told Edmund, then took his sister’s hand and helped her into the gazebo. Edmund followed, then Connor, Lukas, and then Evan himself.

Evan closed the door and latched it with its metal bolt. Connor turned to him and asked, “What about Isaac? Isn’t he coming?”

“Of course he is. Someone has to pilot the bird,” said Evan. Seconds later, the family cried out in surprise as the gazebo was jostled. Shadow hovered above, getting a secure hold on its handle with her talons.

Then the gazebo lifted off the ground, swinging this way and that. “Oh! Fellas, what’s happening? Is it going to drop us?” cried Abigail.

Several leather straps were bolted to the sides of the interior. Lukas held onto one as he told her, “Just hang on. It’ll stop shaking when she reaches a steady altitude.”

Evan turned to his sister and queried, “Abby, did I just hear you say ‘fellas’?”

Abigail glanced back at him only briefly, her plump cheeks turning pink. She replied sharply, “Well, what do you expect? I’ve been away from the Valley for ages!”

“My western heritage is rubbing off on her, I’m afraid,” Edmund jested with a smile. He clutched a strap on the wall and held his wife tightly around her waist.

Connor hadn’t stopped giggling since the gazebo began to rise. Finally the swinging and shaking came to a stop, and from the windows, they could see the blue rooftops of Evangeline Capital far below.

Connor cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted towards the canvas ceiling, “This is class, Isaac! This is so fucking class!”

“Connor, watch your mouth!” Abigail scolded him. She said to Lukas and Evan, “I’m so sorry! He’s just excited. Connor’s never been on a flight before. As a matter of fact, neither have I!”

“Really?” queried Lukas. “You’re taking it pretty well then. A lot of people get in here and either won’t stop screaming or won’t stop spewing. Some even wet themselves out of fear.”

“And sometimes they do all of those things at the same time,” added Evan. He shuddered and mumbled, “I’ll never fly with Balthazaar again, that’s for sure…”

The flight to Greenhearst would take just over an hour. Evan and Lukas regaled the Galanis family with stories during that time. There was no shortage of adventures to talk about, though they decidedly chose the least violent and most humorous ones.

Abigail didn’t need to know about the time Evan was held hostage by bandits, or about when Lukas was kept as a slave in Chidibe. It would only make her worry.

They arrived in Greenhearst well before noon. Shadow was stabled at the town dragonport, then the mercenaries and the Galanises hired yet another carriage to Atlas Farms. It was about an hour’s ride outside town.

The carriage was pulled along by two brown draft horses. It travelled down a seemingly endless dirt road, passing acres upon acres of farmland. Here and there, the passengers would spot a barn or a house, though they were few and far between.

Lorenso may have duped Evan, but what he said about Greenhearst was true. This road looked exactly the same as it did two decades ago.

Though everyone else enjoyed the scenic view, Evan closed his eyes and tried to pretend he was somewhere else. The sights, the sounds, the smells of this place were hauntingly familiar. They twisted his stomach, brought back painful memories he did not want to relive.

The air was bitter-cold. Frost was still glimmering on the ground, and judging by the clouds rolling in, it would remain for quite a bit longer. Most of the fields around them had already been harvested. Winter was well on its way.

Evan pulled his leather coat tighter and glanced at his crew sitting beside him. Lukas seemed unbothered, but Isaac was shivering slightly.

“Isaac, what happened to your hat?” Evan asked.

Isaac shrugged, frowning in shame as he replied, “I forgot it at the house…”

Abigail’s brows knit in concern. “Oh, Evan! He’s going to catch a cold!”

“No, he won’t,” Evan sighed. Then he pulled off his own green toque and clumsily put it on Isaac. The young man straightened it, brushing his unruly curls aside.

“Are you sure?” asked Isaac. “Your hair’s a lot shorter than mine…”

“Yes, but gods know I have enough hair in other places to make up for it,” Evan told him with a weary smile. “I’ll be okay. We’re almost there.”

Indeed, they were nearing Atlas Farms, for they had just passed Evan’s old schoolhouse. He remembered slowly hobbling home with his crutches and his sister by his side. She never walked ahead, never left him behind, even though it would cut her trip home by half. She even carried his books for him and protected him from bullies when she could.

The Galanis boys were the worst of them. Unsavory rumors had been going around about their parents for years—that despite all their money, they were drunkards, they had marital problems, they were poor parents…

Evan believed it, but it didn’t make him any less sore about the way their three sons tormented him.

Evan looked over at Edmund, sitting across from him with Abigail and Connor. The man was staring out the window with his arm wrapped around Abigail’s shoulder, and all Evan could think about was ripping that skinny arm from its socket.

Abigail fought those boys on Evan’s behalf more times than he could count. She bloodied their noses and kicked them in the groins with her big, heavy farm boots whenever they so much as called him names.

So why she chose to marry one of them was beyond him! It was just as shocking to him today as it was all those years ago. It had felt like utter betrayal, and she never did explain her decision to the family. Evan and Foster always shared a mutual bitterness about it. It was one of the few things they were able to bond over.

Married Evangelite women were expected to cover their hair in public, or else be seen as promiscuous. Abigail wore a yellow headscarf today, different than the one she wore yesterday. This one had season-appropriate leaf patterns on it. Evangelite men weren’t required—but often chose—to grow a moustache after marriage. Edmund’s was thick and well-groomed, graying at its edges.

Evan hoped he looked presentable. Though he shaved his face smooth mere hours ago, lycanthropy had already returned the stubble. If he didn’t shave again tonight, he’d have a short beard by tomorrow morning. His sweater covered the forest of hair upon his chest and arms, and his hair was neatly trimmed.

The carriage came to a stop.

“We’re here!” announced Abigail. Edmund was the first out of the carriage, helping the others down the steps. Evan hesitated, even after the others had exited. Edmund stood outside the door with his hand extended to him.

“Coming or not, Captain?” coaxed Lukas. Finally, Evan took a deep breath and accepted Edmund’s hand.

Once he left the carriage, he saw a familiar farmhouse standing innocuously against the gray sky. Innocuous as it seemed on the outside, Evan knew a great and terrible trial lied within. He would sooner face the Trial of Titans again than knock on that door.

Fortunately, Abigail led the way to the porch and knocked on it for him. Evan’s old wheelchair ramp was still there beside the steps. He tried to bury himself behind the group, all standing rigid in the cold breeze.

They could still see several slaves working the wheat fields, rushing to harvest the last of the crops. Others tended the cattle and horses in the pasture. Aside from the additional help, the property looked just the same as it ever did.

The doorknob turned. Evan’s fists clenched in his coat pockets. He stopped breathing until the door opened, revealing not Sofia, but a strange elfenne. Her wrists were shackled in irons, so she was certainly a slave, and she was clad in a modest dress with leather shoes. Her hair was as green as the Valley in spring, pulled into a simple braid.

The elfenne’s narrow eyes rounded when she laid eyes upon the guests. She greeted them brightly, “Mr. and Mrs. Galanis! What a surprise! I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Neither did we until yesterday,” said Abigail. She gestured towards the people behind her. “We brought a few guests, as you can see. I’ll introduce you to each of them later. Everyone, this is Habrene. She’s been Mama’s house-servant for almost two decades now, and she’s just the sweetest little elf in the Valley!”

The mercenaries awkwardly said their “hello”s. Habrene opened the door wider and ushered them inside. “You’re too kind, Ma’am,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you all. Come in, come in, it’s colder than the Shrieking Mountains out there!”

She quickly closed the door behind them. “I will fetch Mrs. Atlas. She was not expecting guests, so it may be a moment. Please, make yourselves comfortable while I help her get ready.” Then she offered a shallow bow and disappeared down the hallway.

Evan’s gaze slowly drifted around the sitting room. He felt as if he’d stepped straight into his memory, for there wasn’t a knick-knack out of place from where he remembered. The white plank walls, the floor rug of blue, the couches and chairs all covered with crocheted blankets and lace doilies made by Grandmama Angeline…

There was the overstuffed bookshelf adjacent to the fireplace. Upon the mantle were glass statuettes of chickens, cows, and horses. Hanging on the wall above, an old family photo of Sofia and Foster standing side-by-side. A young Abigail clutched Foster’s hand, and Evan—a toddler then—was cradled in Sofia’s arms.

Evan vaguely remembered getting that picture taken. According to Sofia, it cost them a small fortune to hire a photographer, for he had to pay a special tax to operate his fancy picture-machine in Evangeline territory. The blue kingdom was quite hostile towards advanced technologies like that.

This was the only photo of Foster in existence, as far as Evan knew. He fixated on it for a long while. Foster looked back at him, his square jaw set tight, brows slightly furrowed. He looked as grumpy as he always did, but Evan swore the man in the picture was judging him for his crimes. He finally looked away with a shudder as the others stripped off their coats, shoes, and bags.

Two couches were angled towards the fireplace, where a fire crackled within. The Galanis family took their seats on one, the mercenaries to the other as they waited for Sofia.

Abigail looked over at Evan’s crew. She must have noticed their anxious expressions, for she told them, “Mama is a very nice woman. She’ll be so happy to meet you fell—um, guys.”

Lukas and Isaac acknowledged her with nods and little forced smiles. It wasn’t Sofia they were worried about. It was their Captain, sitting between them with a vacant stare and sweat gleaming on his face, despite the cold.

Footsteps were coming down the hall. Evan jumped and nearly shot to his feet, but his crewmen quickly pulled him back down.

It was only Habrene anyway, who told them, “Mrs. Atlas is coming now.” She turned to Abigail and added, “She wouldn’t let me push her. You know how she is. Such a stubborn thing!”

Abigail nodded and agreed, “Yes, I know it…”

Then, from the hallway, they saw a short figure slowly approaching. It was a woman in a white and blue dress, perhaps in her sixties, wheeling herself towards them in a wheelchair. Her long, graying hair had remnants of gold in its strands, all braided into a tidy loop at the back of her head. Her fair skin was wrinkled and worn with years of weather exposure.

Lukas and Isaac had no doubt this was Evan’s mother, for as Connor said, she had the “Atlas jaw”. Her calloused hands, her portly body, and her large chest greatly resembled Abigail’s, as if Abigail had suddenly aged two or three decades before them.

Lukas noticed that Evan’s nose was an exact copy of hers—or it had been, before a certain flea-infested satyr headbutted him in the face and broke it so many years ago. Now his had a prominent bump in its bridge, whereas Sofia’s was gently sloped.

Lukas and Isaac each seized one of Evan’s arms just in case he decided to flee again. Abigail quickly stood up and rushed towards her mother, planting a kiss on each of her cheeks.

Sofia exclaimed gleefully, “My sweet Abigail! How are you, dear one? Habrene tells me you’ve brought some friends over to visit. You should have written first so I could clean! The house looks like a pig sty!”

Lukas gave the room another once-over with his eyes. There was not a speck of dust to be found, not even a knick-knack out of place.

Abigail took in a deep breath, let it slow, and replied, “Mama, I have a _huge_ surprise for you. But I don’t want you to have another heart attack when you see it, okay?”

“Oh, Abby, that was ages ago. I’m fit as a fiddle!” the old woman assured her flippantly. “Now what is it?”

Abigail looked back towards the mercenaries. Evan was visibly trembling, beads of sweat rolling down his face, eyes wide and white as the decorative plates hanging on the walls.

Abigail told them, “Um, Mama’s very near-sighted. Can you fellas come closer, please?”

Lukas and Isaac paid eachother a simultaneous nod, then together, they lifted Evan by his arms to a standing position. The captain wobbled slightly, eyes unblinking at his mother. They could hear him breathing, saw the harsh rise and fall of his chest.

Lukas leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “You owe it to her.”

Evan swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded slightly. Then he and his crew walked towards Sofia, who leaned forward to squint at them. They stopped before her, and cautiously, Lukas and Isaac released their grip from Evan’s arms.

Sofia looked up at the massive man towering before her, furrowing her brow as if she possibly knew him, but was struggling to recognize his face. Evan dropped to one knee, lowering himself to her level, and took her hands in his own. Tears began welling in his eyes.

Voice strained and weak, he said one simple word to her, “Mama…”

In that instant, Sofia’s straw-colored brows arched in recollection. She let out a loud gasp, ripping her hands from his grip to cover her mouth. She glanced towards Abigail, then the mercenaries, then towards Edmund and Connor keeping their distance on the couch.

Then her gaze snapped back to Evan, and not a second later, she wailed at the top of her lungs, “M-my son! My boy, my baby boy! Oh, Mother Gaia, Mother Gaia be praised!”

Tears flowed from her eyes like waterfalls, her chest heaving with sobs. Abigail placed her hands on Sofia’s shoulders, trying to calm her. Evan grunted, caught off guard when Sofia suddenly rose from her wheelchair and tossed herself against him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

“Mama!” gasped Abigail, hovering around her anxiously. But Evan kept a strong hold on their mother, slowly rising to his feet with her. Once he stood up, the top of Sofia’s head rose only as high as the center of his chest.

His sweater was wet with tears where she pressed her face. Evan embraced her back, mindful of his lycanthrope strength, and he could not stop his sobs either.

“I’m sorry, Mama, I’m so sorry…” he creaked.

Sofia replied breathlessly, “My Evan, I-I thought I’d never…Y-your sister said…I…I…”

“Mama, _please_ sit down before you hurt yourself!” Abigail pleaded. She and Evan carefully guided her back into her chair, where she pulled a handkerchief from her dress pocket and dried her face.

Abigail then pushed her wheelchair closer to Edmund and Connor, who were already moving the coffee table aside to make room. The mercenaries followed and took their seats again, but this time Lukas pushed Evan towards the end of the couch, where he could be closer to his mother.

Sofia was nearly hyperventilating, pressing her hand against her chest. Abigail rubbed her shoulders until she calmed herself, at least enough to speak. She squeezed her daughter’s hand and said, “What a gift you’ve brought to me today, my daughter…”

“Are you alright, Mrs. Atlas?” queried Habrene, standing nearby.

“Yes, yes,” Sofia replied, still slightly out of breath. “I daresay I am better than I’ve ever been! This boy,” she placed a hand on Evan’s shoulder, then pointed to the photo hanging above the mantle with the other, “is the same boy in that picture, Habrene! This is my son, Evan! He’s alive! He’s alive and he’s returned to me after so very, very long! Oh, gods help me, don’t let this be a dream!”

She nearly broke down into sobs again, blowing her nose into her handkerchief. Stuffing it back into her pocket, she asked her son, “My dear one, where on Gaia have _been_ for all these years? I thought for certain that…that I’d never see you again!”

Evan opened his mouth to speak, but he was so overwhelmed that the words stuck in his throat. Only a tearful croak came out. He shook his head in apology as he dragged his palms over his wet eyes.

Lukas placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke for him, “Evan has been doing mercenary work, Ma’am. He’s the captain of our crew, the Freelance Good Guys. Our headquarters is in Folkvar territory, but we’ve been pretty much all over the world.”

Sofia cocked her head at Lukas. “Mercenary work?” she blurted. “My baby’s a _mercenary_? Goodness, that sounds so dangerous! What about his family? Are you his wife, dear?”

Everyone, including Evan, exchanged glances of befuddlement. Abigail quickly told her, “Mama, that’s Lukas, one of Evan’s crewmen. He’s a _man_.”

Sofia gasped, slapping a hand against her open mouth. Her cheeks flushed pink as she broke into nervous laughter, leaning forward to touch Lukas’ knee. “I’m so very sorry, Mr. Lukas! My eyes have been giving me terrible grief as of late! I can tell by your accent, you must be Matuzan. We Evangelites aren’t used to men wearing their hair so long, you see. I do apologize.”

Lukas calmly smiled back, replied with a shrug, “No hard feelings, Mrs. Atlas. I _may as well_ be his wife. Evan and I have worked together for—what? About twenty years now?”

“Something like that,” Evan said quietly.

Lukas patted his shoulder and went on, “I’ve kept him out of trouble. Saved his hide more times than I can count. But he’s done the same for me, so I suppose we’re a happy little couple.”

“Well, I do thank you very much for looking out for him,” said Sofia. “I’ve prayed for his safety every night since he left home. It seems the gods were listening after all.”

She turned to Isaac, sitting quietly beside Lukas with his hands clasped before him. She asked, “And my, look at you! What is your name, little princess? Are you one of Connor’s friends?”

Connor burst out into laughter, falling back into his seat. Edmund quickly delivered a slap to the back of his son’s head and shushed him.

Abigail explained once again, “Mama, that’s Isaac. _He_ is one of Evan’s other crewmen.”

Sofia slapped her hands against her face. Her voice was muffled as she spoke against them, “Oh, I’m a hopeless old biddy! I am so sorry, boys! You foreign men and your long hair…!”

Isaac chuckled, “It’s okay, Ma’am. Trust me, it takes a lot more than that to offend us.”

Sofia touched Evan’s knee and asked him, “Evan, sweetheart, you’ve been so quiet! Please, tell me what’s happened since you left. Are you married? Do you have children?”

Evan paused for a long moment, looking towards his crewmen for help. They had none to give. Lukas just tipped his head towards Sofia, encouraging him to give his own answer.

Evan cleared his throat and replied, slowly and reluctantly, “Well, um…I’m not married, no. I’m married to my job, if anything. We’re just…we’re always on the move, I just don’t have time for that.”

He gestured to his crewmen beside him and continued, “I have no children by blood, as far as I know. But I suppose my crew fills the role just the same. We took in Isaac here when he was just ten years old and raised him like our own. He’s very much like a son to me.”

He rustled the young man’s curly hair. Isaac smiled back at him before shaking it out, letting his curls fall naturally where they may. The longest of them dangled to his chin, but stretched out, they extended well passed his shoulders. Sofia wheeled herself closer to him and cupped his face in her hands.

She wore a delighted smile when she said, “If this boy is a son to you, then he is a grandson to me! What a handsome young man, and so polite! It’s lovely to meet you, Isaac.”

Isaac’s brows shot up when she planted a kiss on each of his cheeks, then pulled him into a tight hug. Unsure of what else to do, he simply hugged her back.

Once she withdrew, Sofia took Lukas’ hand in both of her own and told him, “And you, Lukas. I’m happy to see my son has kept such good company.”

With his mother’s approval, Evan’s shoulders began to relax. So too did his voice when he said, “I wish you could meet the whole crew, Mama. They’re amazing people, every one of them. They’ve been a family to me since I left.”

“Well, just bring them down any time!” exclaimed Sofia. “I’ll have the slaves whip this place into shape and we can all have a big feast!”

“Uh…” Evan paused, choosing his next words carefully. “I’d love to, but it surely isn’t possible. A great deal of them are fae and gaians, you see.”

Sofia gasped, “They are? Are they at least in irons?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what’s to stop them from casting spells on you?” Sofia’s brow wrinkled with worry. She anxiously fingered the top button of her dress.

“They’re not my property, Mama. They’re my friends,” Evan told her. “I couldn’t call them ‘friends’ if I didn’t trust them.”

Sofia shook her head, pressing one hand to her cheek and the other to her chest. “You cannot be so trusting of them, my son. You really must be careful around those people!”

She turned to Lukas. “Mr. Lukas, will you please keep an eye on those magical folk for him? My boy means well, but he is just far too sweet for his own good! He’s been that way ever since he was a baby.”

Lukas stifled his own smile, holding back a snicker when he replied, “Sure thing, Ma’am. I’ll watch those hobs like a hawk.”

Isaac flinched at the slur, then jabbed Lukas in the side with his elbow. “Seriously?” he hissed. Lukas just smiled and threw an arm around Isaac’s shoulder, squeezing him in a painful but discreet headlock to silence him.

“I was never ‘sweet’…” mumbled Evan.

“Yes, you were! You were a darling!” insisted Sofia. She turned to the others and went on, “He was the tiniest baby you’ve ever seen, like a doll come to life! He was very sickly back then, you see. Why, Abigail used to dress him in little doll’s clothes and push him around in her toy pram! Do you remember that, Abby?”

The old woman paused to laugh, full and hearty. Abigail added, “Of course I do. Papa would get so bent out of shape about it…” She imitated her father’s voice, deep and gruff, “_’Get my boy out of that damned dress, Abigail! You’ll make him merry with all that nonsense_!’” They all laughed together, Edmund and Connor as well.

Lukas and Isaac each forced a chuckle, glancing awkwardly towards Evan. He had suddenly gone quiet, nervously chewing his lip.

Thankfully, Habrene spoke up and changed the subject. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Mrs. Atlas, but shall I begin preparing lunch for our guests?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sofia. “Yes, please do! In fact, call a couple more of the girls in here and get a feast started as well. You lot can have a roast done by dinner time, can’t you?”

“Certainly, we can. I’ll go tell the menfolk to chop a pig and we’ll get started,” Habrene replied with a shallow bow, then hurried off through a doorway.

Sofia apologized to her guests, “I’m sorry I’ve been such a poor host, everyone. I broke my hip a few months ago and the stubborn thing just doesn’t want to mend. Otherwise, I swear I‘d be walking you all over the property! It’s quite a big place, this farm. Abigail, would you be a dear and give these boys a tour, please? I think I need to rest for just a moment.”

Abigail agreed, beckoning Lukas and Evan to follow her down the hall. “Wait,” said Connor, snagging Isaac’s arm, “I wanna show Isaac around outside.”

“Alright. Just be careful,” Abigail warned, and the boys left through the front door.

She led Lukas and Evan through a doorway to the dining room and then the kitchen. In the kitchen was a back door, where Habrene had just walked in, leading a troop of three other slaves.

They were all adult females who appeared to be on the younger side, one elfenne and two goblins. Like Habrene, they all wore irons on their wrists, though their clothes were more tattered and crude than hers. None of them were even wearing shoes.

Overall, they looked much more haggard and unwashed than Habrene did, and the mercenaries could only assume they were field slaves who probably didn’t spend much time indoors.

The field slaves glanced at the mercenaries only briefly, as if afraid to make eye contact. They said not a word as they began digging through cupboards to prepare a meal. There was an iron woodstove in the kitchen, no electrical lights or appliances to be seen. The house was lit by candles and oil lamps, but primarily by daylight beaming in from the windows.

It was a modest one-story ranch house with a spacious basement, where jars upon jars of preserved goods were stored. Abigail led the mercenaries down the hallway, showing them the single bathroom (which they were thankful to see had plumbing), her old bedroom that Habrene now called her own, Sofia’s bedroom, and finally the last bedroom at the end of the hall.

Before they entered this room, Abigail turned to Evan and said, “Mama kept your room exactly the way you left it. She never goes inside. She won’t even let Habrene clean in there.”

“Is it okay if we go in?” asked Evan.

Abigail shrugged. “That’s up to you. It’s your room, isn’t it?”

Evan faced the door, silent for a long moment. After a deep breath, he decided, “I think I’d like to be alone.”

Abigail briefly rubbed his back before taking her leave, heading back down the hall towards the sitting room. Lukas clapped him on the shoulder and then trailed her. Evan was left alone in the hallway to stare at his old bedroom door, until finally, he gathered the courage to open it.

The room beyond was dark. Evan’s sensitive nose was hit with the smell of dust before anything. But even through that, he caught the faint scent of a person.

The sharp odor of their sweat was left behind on the bed, which was unmade with clothes strewn over it. There were more clothes strewn on the floor, an empty glass and an oil lamp on the side table, and two bookshelves bowing under the weight of too many books.

The curtains were drawn, discolored with dust and cobwebs. Webs stretched across every corner. Evan caught a glimpse of a black spider fleeing behind the bookshelves.

The person he smelled, he realized, was himself. But it was not the same way he smelled now, like wet dog and woodsmoke.

The person he smelled didn’t have the bestial stink of a lycanthrope. It was the scent of a sickly human being; a mix of medicines, herbal teas, and antibacterial ointments alongside sweat and dander.

Evan realized then just how much the disease had really changed him. He did not even smell the same. He did not even smell _human _anymore. No wonder dogs became so upset around him, he thought, for he looked like a man and smelled like a mongrel. It must have left them terribly frightened and confused.

Delicately, Evan stepped into the room, mindful of the clutter on the floor. What a messy teenager he’d been. Sofia expected so little of him as a boy, given how sick he was, so she never bothered to teach him the things she taught Abigail. Such as how to pick up after himself, cook a meal, wash clothes…

If not for his time with Zeffer Vengelor, Evan realized he would be pitifully incompetent at caring for himself. It was Zeffer who shamed him for being such a slob and taught him to do better. In return, Evan taught Zeffer how to fight.

The cobwebs split apart as he drew the curtains back, allowing daylight to flood the room. The window was dirty with years of neglected grime and mold growth, obscuring his view of the outside. He swiped a shirt off the bed and spit upon it, using it to wipe a patch of the glass clean. Now he could see his family’s wheat fields and the slaves laboriously tending them.

He tossed the soiled shirt into the laundry basket like he should have done two decades ago, and then he quietly closed the bedroom door. Softly, he padded his way towards the bed and kneeled at its end.

Slipping his hand between the mattress and the wooden frame, he pulled out an innocuous, well out-of-date farmer’s almanac. Such a book was completely worthless enough two, even three decades ago, and even more so now. Anyone else would have barely glanced at its cover before throwing it into the trash.

Only Evan knew its true worth, so he instead opened it and flipped to its center. He recalled taping an envelope onto one of the pages as a teenager. Sure enough, there it was, still waiting for him after all this time.

Evan looked back at the door. He heard no footsteps behind it, so he quietly opened the envelope and took out the folded picture inside. It was slightly yellowed but surprisingly unscathed as he unfolded it, a page torn from some lewd magazine marketed to “immoral women and merrymen”. A photo of an attractive human man looked back at him, lying nude in a wanton pose.

Evan spent a lot of time with this piece of paper in his youth. For as much delight as it brought him, it also caused him a great deal of grief. He used to have nightmares about his parents finding it—particularly his father.

He knew neither of them would have approved, but Foster had been especially vocal about his hatred of those immoral women and merrymen “killing this kingdom with their degeneracy!”

What he would have done if he found such a picture in his son’s room, Evan couldn’t bear to imagine.

After contracting lycanthropy, Evan became well enough to ride into town and find all kinds of trouble. He made fast friends with a group of hoodlums his age, who just graduated school and were figuring out what to do with their lives just as he was.

They were a rough bunch who liked to get fall-down-drunk at the tavern and fight eachother for fun. One of them, a young man named Matthias, was the son of an Evangelite military sergeant.

He and Evan got along especially well, so Matthias started giving Evan lessons in martial arts and swordsmanship. Evan remembered practicing with him in the alley behind the tavern, swinging a stick at trash bins. How far he’d come since then!

His friends also liked to collect lewd pictures from the black market and trade them amongst themselves. One night as they were trading pictures in the alley, Matthias slipped a folded paper in the front pocket of Evan’s trousers and whispered, “Don’t look at that ‘til you’re alone, okay?”

Evan did as he was told and excused himself to the grungy tavern restroom. He shut himself in a stall and unfolded the picture—the very same one he held now.

From that point forward, an aspect of himself that he’d been grappling with for years suddenly bloomed into something certain. But what remained uncertain were the intentions of his best friend and forbidden crush, Matthias.

Evan thought that if it had been a prank, he would have let Evan open it in front of their friends. They’d all have a laugh, trash the picture, and move on. But he’d wanted Evan to see it in private, his hand lingering just a bit too long in his pocket, his smile a little too wry when he walked away…

Matthias had to have known how Evan felt about him. Somehow he knew Evan was a merryman, and with that kind of perception, he had to have known he was a lycanthrope as well. But he never ratted him out to the Evangeline Guard for either of those things, and Evan had been so nervous about the whole ordeal that he took his sweet time making a move back.

He waited too long, in fact. Before their potential relationship could get anywhere, his lycanthropy had made a mess of things and he was forced to flee the kingdom. Matthias was left behind along with everything else.

Looking at this silly picture now, Evan only wondered what could have been if it weren’t for that fateful night. Folding it up once more, he did not return it to the farmer’s almanac, but slipped it into his pocket. His mother wouldn’t miss something she never knew about in the first place.

*

“Hey, I just remembered,” began Isaac, “you said your girlfriend is in Greenhearst, right? You wanna stop and visit her on the way home?”

“Huh?” Connor quirked an eyebrow. After a moment, their discussion from yesterday caught up to him. “Oh! Yeah. Annabel.”

“I thought her name was Angeline?”

Connor’s face turned beet-red. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth mid-drag and coughed, “It is! Annabel’s her, uh, nickname.”

“I thought nicknames were supposed to be shorter than your name…”

Connor thumped his head against the side of Sofia’s house, blowing a stream of smoke into the air. A silence passed, then he said, “I’d give anything to switch places with you, Isaac.”

Sitting on a barrel nearby, Isaac queried, “What do you mean?”

The two stared out at the fields ahead as Connor explained, “My boring papa wants me to go to boring business college and take over his boring business when he’s old. I’d rather jump in front of a train than push papers all day! Can you imagine doing that for twenty, forty years? I don’t know how he can stand it! I’d hang myself! Wouldn’t you?”

Isaac thought about it for a moment. He had never attended a single day at school before. He’d never filled out paperwork either, so he had nothing else to compare his life to. Being a mercenary was all he’d ever known.

“I don’t know. School seems kind of fun,” he answered. “I don’t get to hang out with other teenagers a lot. All of the other mercenaries are twice my age, at least. I bet you make tons of friends at school.”

“You’d think,” sighed Connor, stomping out his cigarette, “but I don’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just…I don’t like it here. They say it’s a dangerous wasteland outside the borders. Hobs and beast-folk running free, lobbing spells around and all that. But if that’s true, then I say let me at ‘em! I always wanted to join the military just so I could become a dragoneer. I want to fly, just like you fly that bird!”

“So why don’t you? You’ll be sixteen soon, right?”

“Yeah, but my parents would _kill_ me. Papa said if I joined the military, I wouldn’t see a coin or hear a word from him ever again. I don’t want him to disown me or anything, but I don’t wanna follow in his stupid footsteps either!”

“Well…” Isaac began thoughtfully. “If it helps you feel any better, being a mercenary isn’t that great. One time, we got lost in a forest for so long that we ran out of water, so we had to drink from a brown river.”

Connor wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”

“That’s not the worst part,” added Isaac. “The worst part was the cholera we all got afterwards. Have you ever blasted shit from both ends at once?”

The Galanis boy stifled a snicker. “No…”

“Well, you’ll have that to look forward to if you become a mercenary. Oh, and there was also the time Alaine got swallowed by a Greywood Gulper and we had to cut her out of its stomach. And the time a spriggan infected Glenvar with some disease that almost turned him into a plant. Also the time a lich stole all our souls, and uh…I’m still not sure how we got them back, to be honest.”

Connor blinked his wide eyes. “God damn, fella! Is that all true? How did you live to see sixteen anyway?”

Isaac shrugged and replied, “I dunno. Dunno if I’ll even make it to seventeen. But when you’re a mercenary, you can’t think about tomorrow or you’ll drive yourself insane. If all you have to worry about tomorrow is getting to school on time, I think you got it pretty good.”

“I mean, sure, I’ll live _longer_,” said Connor. “But will I really _live_? Is that really a life, sitting in an office all day long when there’s a huge world out there? I’d rather die as a free eagle than live as a canary in a cage, shitting on my own perch day after day, you know?”

Isaac smiled, almost chuckled. “Yeah. I feel that way too.”

Another silence passed. Then Isaac asked, “So, do you want to visit your girlfriend or not?”

Connor hesitated. “No,” he sighed, shoving his clammy hands in his coat pockets. “I think I’m gonna break up with her. She’s not the one for me. This whole damn kingdom isn’t for me.”

“Boys?” a voice called from the right. The two turned and saw Abigail round the corner of the house. She continued, “There you are! The feast is almost ready. Why don’t you come inside and help us set the table?”

With nothing better to do, the boys trailed her back into the house. Abigail stopped half-way up the steps to the porch and seized Connor’s arm.

“Ow, Mama!” he griped as she buried her nose into his shoulder.

“What’s the smell?” she snapped. “Were you smoking again?”

With a roll of his eyes, Connor jerked his arm out of her grip and replied, “No! Get off my ass, will you?”

With that, he hurried into the house and slammed the door behind him. Abigail let out a sigh. Her gaze drifted towards Isaac, standing awkwardly beside her. She asked, “Was he smoking, Isaac?”

“Uuuuh…” the mercenary froze, unable to speak, fully aware of what a terrible, awful liar he was.

His silence said enough. Abigail shook her head with disappointment as she led the way back into the house.

*

The Atlas house had a longer dinner table than the Galanis house, with enough chairs to seat Sofia, all of her guests, and then some.

Every inch of the table was covered in food, with an entire roasted pig sitting in the center. Surrounding the pig were plates of halved and peppered boiled eggs, cheese wedges, garlic biscuits, glistening sausages, buttery potatoes with green beans, and a round, beige cake topped with chestnuts.

The cake was colloquially known as _appelchek_. Evan was honored to see it on the table, for it was only made to celebrate special occasions.

Sofia’s guests took their seats before the sumptuous feast. Before they began eating, Sofia led them all in a Lindist prayer of gratitude to Mother Gaia.

Isaac closed his eyes with her out of respect. He cracked one open in curiosity, only to see Connor shoving a halved egg in his mouth across from him. Connor noticed his scrutiny and smiled back, silently jamming his middle finger up his nostril. Isaac stifled a snicker.

Once the prayer was finished, Sofia invited everyone to eat. All but Habrene, standing at Sofia’s side with her hands politely folded before her. Isaac leaned towards Evan and whispered, “Does Habrene get to eat?”

Evan swallowed a bite, whispering back, “Yes, after we’re done.”

“Evan, my son,” Sofia began, sawing her knife through a slab of meat, “I want to hear more about this mercenary business of yours.”

Evan dragged a cloth napkin over his lips before he replied, “There’s nothing I could say that could do it justice. The places we go, the people we meet—it’s amazing, every moment of it.”

“Isaac says you all got cholera from a river,” mentioned Connor, speaking over a mouthful of potatoes.

Sofia gasped, “Goodness! Cholera? I heard people die from that!”

Evan waved his hand dismissively. “That only happened once,” he assured them. “We all came out of it alive. We never take a contract unless we’re ninety-nine percent sure we can handle it.”

Edmund cocked an eyebrow. “What about the other one percent?” he asked.

Evan shrugged. “Well, nothing in life is certain. The point is, despite the risks, I’ve always felt that this line of work was my calling. I love helping folks, I love making a difference. But most of all, I love adventure.”

He chewed another bite, swallowed before he went on, “The world is nothing like they teach in school. Nothing at all! The blue kingdom is blasting you—all of you—“ he swept his finger around the table, “with propaganda and outright lies! The world is not a destitute, violent wasteland crawling with hostile fae. Other kingdoms are not primitive, lawless cesspits…”

“Most of them, anyway,” grumbled Lukas.

Evan gestured to him and added, “Lukas here grew up in Matuzu Kingdom. His village, I daresay, is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I even made friends with a king while I was there.”

“A king?” blurted Edmund. Bits of food flew from his mouth.

Sofia’s anxious expression hadn’t changed as she mulled her son’s words over in her head. Finally, she said, “But there is _magic_ out there, dear…”

“Yes, and it gives the world _life_, Mama,” Evan assured her. “Seeing what I’ve seen and knowing what I know now, I would never want to live in a world without magic. In our village, fae and gaians walk free among us commoners. They’re our friends and neighbors. As we speak, a satyress is sitting in my office, doing all my paperwork while I’m away.”

Habrene lifted her head, staring intently at Evan as if hanging on to his every word.

Sofia recoiled a bit. “A satyress? Surely you’re kidding! Can she even read?”

“Better than half the guys in our crew can,” Evan told her, unable to keep the smile off his face or the enthusiasm from his voice. “I know a centaur who can build a whole house without a single nail. I know an old satyr and a funny little kobold who run a medical clinic. Mama, I know an elf who can burst into flame and _teleport through dimensions_!”

He raised his hands with excitement, then dropped them against the table, rattling the dishes around him. “None of those people have ever done wrong by me. In fact, they’ve enriched my life more than I can say. I only wish I could pull you out of this dull, dreadful kingdom so you could see it for yourself!”

Sofia and the Galanis family stared at him in silence for an uncomfortable moment. Then, Connor clutched his mother’s sleeve and said, “Mama, let me go visit them.”

“Absolutely not,” she hissed back.

“Pleeeease! Just for a while, pleeeeease!” the boy begged like a child half his age.

“Connor, your mother said ‘no’!” Edmund barked. “These men live a rough, difficult kind of life that you wouldn’t like one bit. You should aim to be a successful businessman, not some backwater sellsword.”

“I swear, it isn’t at all like you think,” Evan insisted.

Abigail wouldn’t hear it. She shook her head and told him, “Connor has no good reason to leave this kingdom. He has everything he needs and more. Life is comfortable here; we have nothing to complain about.”

“Mamaaaa!” Connor growled through his teeth, fists clenched on the tabletop. His spoon trembled in his fist.

“Son,” began Sofia, “the work you do is for strong, young men…”

“Like me!” blurted Connor.

Sofia continued, “You’ll be forty years old next spring, mind you. Think of all the things you’ve sacrificed to do this line of work: marriage, children, and peace of mind, for starters! Why don’t you sell your company and settle down somewhere? You could come back home and work the farm with me.”

Edmund froze, a bite of sausage hovering half-way up to his mouth. Across from him, Evan shook his head and told his mother, “You and I both know why I can’t do that…”

“But you can!” argued Sofia. “You’ll be much safer here in the kingdom than out there, among all those brutish gaians and tricky fae!”

“Do you really believe that? That I’ll be safer here, trapped in a kingdom that lynches people like me?” Evan snapped. “At least in the red kingdom, it’s not illegal for me to _exist_!”

Sofia replied desperately, “Nobody would have to know about your—y-your disease, Evan! Just don’t tell anyone about it! You could keep to yourself right here on this farm, and you’d be safe and happy just like when you were a boy.”

“I _wasn’t_ happy,” Evan said, each word strained as if they pained him. “I was miserable here. That’s…that’s why I, uh…did…this.” He gestured to himself, up and down his torso, referring to the lycanthropy that raged through his veins. “I’m sorry.”

The expression that crossed Sofia’s face made him regret his words. Her blue eyes grew heavy with a deep sadness that tugged all the way down at the corners of her mouth. For a moment, he was sure she would start crying.

Instead, she poked her food with her fork and said quietly, “I understand…”

Evan’s heart hardened into a brick, heavy in his chest. He floundered for a long moment as the other guests avoided the awkwardness by keeping their mouths full.

Then he said, “All this worrying about me—getting old this, sacrificing that—when you’re well into your sixties. You have bad eyes, a broken hip and a damaged heart, Mama! You can’t keep working this farm or it’s going to kill you. Why don’t _you_ move in with Edmund and Abigail? It’ll certainly be a lot safer.”

Edmund suddenly choked, pounding his fist against his chest. He coughed the offending piece of food into a napkin as Sofia replied, “I couldn’t possibly leave the farm, dear. This is my home, and there is no place I would rather be.”

She dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Besides, someone has to grow wheat for our boys in blue. My life here gives me such a great sense of purpose, you see. When I’m away from home, I simply feel empty inside until I return. I travelled all the way here from Glasstide as a girl and that was quite enough adventuring for my lifetime!”

Evan couldn’t mask the disappointment in his eyes. He felt a great sense of loss on behalf of his mother, that she would live her whole life seeing and knowing so little. All he could say to her was, “I see…” and then he occupied his mouth with the feast before him.

Once the guests were full and the feast was reduced to scraps, Sofia patted Connor on the head and told him, “Why don’t you boys play outside while there’s still some daylight left? There’s a swing around back.”

“I’m fifteen, Grandmama, not five…” grumbled Connor.

Abigail swatted her son on the head and pointed towards the back door. With a roll of his eyes, Connor rose from his chair and led Isaac outside.

Edmund excused himself to the bathroom while Lukas followed the boys to the backyard. “To keep an eye on them,” he reasoned. Abigail offered to help Habrene with the dishes.

“Come sit by the fire with me, dear one,” Sofia told Evan, and together they moved into the sitting room. An antique chair creaked under Evan’s weight when he sat down. Sofia wheeled herself in front of him.

“I wanted to speak with you alone,” she said. She reached into her dress pocket and offered him a folded, yellowed piece of paper. “Look at this. I held onto it after all these years. Can you believe it?”

Evan glanced at her, then down at the paper. He took it and delicately unfolded it, saw it was some kind of letter. The worn penmanship read,

_ “Dear Abigail,_

_ When we were children, you told me you would love me no matter who or what I was. But no one should be expected to love a monster._

_ This is the last time you will ever hear from me. I’ve done something heinous, evil, and unforgivable._

_ I’m sure you have heard news about Papa. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for everything. Please tell Mama I’m sorry too, for I have not the courage, nor the right to face her again._

_ I never intended for any of this to happen. I just wanted to be well, and I thought I could achieve that with lycanthropy. But my poor decisions have poisoned everyone around me._

_ By the time you read this letter, I will be long gone. I can never right my wrongs. All I can do is be better tomorrow._

_ I love you, Abby. Goodbye._

_ \--Evan”_

The letter trembled in Evan’s hands. Of all the emotions to feel, it was anger that coursed through him in that moment. How selfish and cowardly he’d been!

He crumbled the letter in his fist and cast it into the fireplace. The letter was evidence of his actions—of his greatest, heaviest shame—yet he felt no relief as he watched it blacken into ash.

“You cannot run from this, Evan,” Sofia told him gently. He felt the warmth of her hand on his shoulder. “Even if you had never come here, your history would remain the same, and you would still be what you are. I was certain that if there was any chance you were still alive, you would never set foot in this kingdom again. Whether you were alive or dead, we held a funeral for you alongside your father.”

The old woman gave his shoulder a squeeze, emotion contorting her face. She went on, “The only ones to lay eyes upon that letter were myself and Abigail. I told no one of it, I swear to you. A few hours after your father went out that night, I went looking for him. Thank goodness I did, for I found his body before the Guard did…”

Sofia sniffled, wiping her eye before she continued, “And when I saw it, I just _knew_. All of the pieces came together in my head. Even before Abigail showed me the letter, I knew exactly what you were and exactly what had happened, and I fainted right there in the snow.

Evan clenched his teeth behind his lips, closing his eyes tightly. Selfish, selfish, how despicably _selfish_ he’d been, he thought.

He had half a mind to throw himself into the fireplace too, but Sofia kept a tight hold on his shoulder as she said, “I told the Guard that wolves had been prowling around our property. They told me that Foster’s, er…condition…was consistent with an animal attack, and that whatever it was, it had probably dragged you off. They searched, but they never found you. They pronounced you legally dead with my blessing.”

She shook her head. “I did not want to believe you were alive out there, sick and all alone, going mad with lycanthropy…Do you remember when I told you about old Ms. Agathe?”

Silently, Evan nodded. Sofia sighed, “I couldn’t bear to think of my son like that. But having known her and seeing what I’ve seen, I suspected early on that you had this disease. I never confronted you about it because I just…I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“I’m so sorry, Mama,” Evan told her, teardrops rolling from his eyes when he blinked. He leaned forward and pulled her into an embrace. “I never meant to hurt you. Or Abby, or Papa, or anyone! I’m a selfish, horrible monster, and I have never forgiven myself for what I’ve done! There’s a damned good reason this kingdom puts people like me down!”

“Shhh,” Sofia hushed him, resting her cheek against his head. “Don’t talk about my son that way. You said it yourself: You can never right your wrongs. All you can do is be better tomorrow.”

“I’ve tried to be better,” Evan creaked, “I’ve tried so hard! I try every day! I try to be good and make up for what I did, but it’s never enough!”

His mother withdrew from the embrace. “Evan,” she began calmly, cupping his prickly jaw in her hands, “I _forgive_ you. Your sister forgives you. The only person left you need forgiveness from is yourself. Until you have that, you can do all the good deeds in the world and your guilt will still overcome you. Do you understand?”

Evan sniffled, shaking his head against her palms. “I don’t know if I can forgive myself,” he told her, the pathetic tone in his voice disappointing even him.

Sofia released his face, briefly brushing his hair aside as she said, “Listen to me, my son. I too was burdened by so much guilt after that day, it stressed my heart into a fit. I had a heart attack about two months afterwards, and as I lay in that hospital bed, confronted with my own mortality, I realized that this was not what you or your father would have wanted for me. My guilt was not helping anyone, let alone myself.”

She paused for a moment, chewing her lip as if thinking over her words with care. Then she said, “I realize I’ve made so many mistakes as a wife, and especially as a mother. If there was ever a time to confront those mistakes, it would be now. I’m so sorry, Evan. I know Foster was a drunkard and he was unkind more often than not. I know he was especially hard on you. But it wasn’t because he hated you—he certainly loved you as much I do. It was because he _feared_ for you. He did not know how to handle fear, so he became angry.”

“Nevertheless,” she sighed, “he was an awful father. I feel if he did not push you so hard, called you ‘useless’ and ‘pathetic’ and all those terrible things, perhaps you wouldn’t have sought this disease. I should have left him, but I was afraid. I thought if I did, I would become a penniless vagrant and the courts would never let me see you again. I did not want you and your sister to be left alone with him. I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”

Evan pulled her into another hug, rubbing her back as she cried into his shoulder. “Don’t. You’ve always had to apologize for Papa’s behavior, and I can’t believe you’re still doing it now after he’s gone,” he told her softly. “That isn’t right. You’re a wonderful mother. You always did your best under the circumstances. I love you, Mama, and there was never a time when I didn’t.”

“I love you too, dear one,” the old woman sniffled. She planted a kiss on his forehead before she pulled away. “I will love you no matter who or what you are, until the end of time.”

Bringing her kerchief to her eyes, Sofia steadied her voice and said, “Oh, enough with all these tears. This is a joyous occasion! I know I keep repeating myself, but you’ve made me the happiest mother in the world today. You will be staying for a while, won’t you?”

Evan hesitated. “Er, we’ll see,” he answered slowly. “Things are surely piling up back home. My crew can’t get paid if I’m not there to pay them.”

Sofia took his hand and pleaded, “Won’t you at least stay the night? I have two extra bedrooms here.”

“Two? Doesn’t one belong to Habrene?”

Sofia waved her hand. “It won’t kill her to sleep in the barn for a night. If it’s good enough for the field slaves, it’s good enough for her. Please, dear?”

After a lengthy moment of contemplation, Evan replied, “One more day wouldn’t hurt, I’m sure. I’ll speak with the crew about it.”

A bright smile beamed on the old woman’s face. “Thank you, Evan. I’ll tell Habrene to get the linens washed. I promise you, I will not allow this house to be a source of misery any longer. From now on, you will always be safe and loved here.”

*

Lukas leaned against the side of the house, arms crossed tightly over his chest. In the distance, he’d been watching Connor and Isaac attempt to ride a cow like a horse. At some point he tired their foolishness and turned towards the scenic field of gourds to his right.

He saw the dark silhouette of slaves struggling to harvest the gourds before the last rays of daylight disappeared. It was only getting colder, sure to freeze that night. He counted only one gaian, the rest being fae.

He was not surprised. Without their magic, elves and goblins were frail and physically weak, and therefore easier to control. It was the same reason his own family exclusively kept elven slaves.

There was one commoner among them. He was a burly roshava wearing leather armor, holding a long, iron rod. Occasionally he’d brandish it in one of his four hands and shout at a slave. The roshava must have been some kind of overseer, Lukas thought.

While the overseer was occupied with yelling at someone, Lukas saw a small elfette take a tumble in the dirt. The gourd she’d been carrying flew from her hands and rolled away. Lukas pushed himself off the wall and ran towards her.

By the time he arrived, she was already back on her feet. But not for long, for she collapsed back down with a yelp and clutched her ankle, tears sparkling in her eyes. When Lukas approached, she raised both arms to her face as if to shield it.

But Lukas did not strike her. Rather, he kneeled before her and asked, “I saw you fall. Are you alright?”

The elfette was thin and gangly, with straight, black hair cut into a boxy shape. A crude burlap dress was draped over her golden-skinned body. She was surely prepubescent, perhaps not even ten years old.

“Um, my ankle hurts,” she told him meekly. She wobbled as she stood up again, placing all her weight on her healthy ankle. Lukas stood up with her, holding her arm to keep her steady.

“What’s your name? Do you need a doctor?” he asked.

“My name’s Liani,” she told him, shaking her head. “I can’t see a doctor, Sir. I need to finish my work before it gets dark, or Master Vehan will punish me.”

With that, she hobbled towards the gourd she dropped and picked it up again. The weighty vegetable was already too heavy for her, and her injured ankle didn’t help matters. Before she got very far, Lukas said, “Give me that,” and swiped it from her hands. “How many more of these do you have to move?”

Liani looked back at the field. She flinched as the overseer, Vehan, charged towards a lagging goblin and hit him with his iron rod.

“A lot,” she answered. Lukas transferred the gourd to one arm and picked the girl up in his other. He carried her to a large rock jutting up from the dirt and set her on its flat surface.

“Wait here until I get back,” he told her sharply, pointing a finger threateningly in her face. “If I catch you walking on that ankle, you’re in big trouble. Hear me?”

Liani quickly nodded back. Then she watched as Lukas returned to the field and piled another gourd into his right arm. He picked up two in his left, then carried all four towards the storage house where the other slaves dropped their own loads. The storage house was built partially underground, piled high with bundles of wheat, barrels of potatoes, and gourds.

The fae slaves watched Lukas, in awe at the great weight he could carry, but also befuddled to see a commoner doing slave work. In Evangeline Kingdom, such a thing was simply unheard of.

Lukas carried several armfuls of gourds to the barn, wishing he’d thought to find a wheelbarrow first. These frail, malnourished fae surely couldn’t push a wheelbarrow full of heavy gourds. Most of them could hardly push a wheelbarrow at all. So they carried them off the field just one at a time.

Before long, the overseer noticed the human on the field. He ran up to Lukas and queried, “You! Are you authorized to be on this property?”

Lukas kept walking with an armful of plump, yellow gourds as he replied, “Name’s Lukas. I’m a houseguest.”

The roshava seemed unconvinced. “Then why aren’t you in the house?” he asked gruffly. “You have no reason to be out here with the hobs.”

Lukas stopped walking, tipped his head towards the elfette sitting on a rock in the distance, and replied, “That little girl twisted her ankle, so I’m taking over for her. Whatever she was going to do, I’ll get it done ten times as fast.” That said, he continued on his way. He dropped the gourds into the storage area with the rest, then returned to the field for another load.

Master Vehan scowled at him, looking as if he wanted to protest. Instead, he turned around and shouted at another slave.

Just before dark, the very last gourd was deposited. Lukas and the ten slaves waited by the storage house until Vehan arrived to close and lock it with the key on his belt. The slaves hadn’t even the energy to cheer for their accomplishment. They were left exhausted and filthy, some hardly able to stand.

All but Liani, still sitting obediently upon her rock. As Lukas approached her, Vehan raised a metal cone to his lips. The cone amplified his voice when he shouted, “Slaves! Back to your quarters! No lollygagging, let’s go!”

“Come on, kid,” Lukas grunted, lifting Liani into his sore arms. As he carried her to the slave barn, he asked, “How does your ankle feel?”

“Um, it feels the same, I think,” she answered quietly. “I’ll ask a grown-up to wrap it.”

“Do you want me to tell Mrs. Atlas what happened so she can get you to a doctor?”

Liani shook her head and blurted, “No! Please don’t tell her I got hurt, please, please, please! I can still work! I can!”

“Alright, alright, calm down,” Lukas sighed, though he realized she had every right to panic. He knew well what happened to crippled slaves, and apparently, so did she.

Lukas carried Liani into the barn, where the other slaves were collapsing on their beds of hay and pelts. Curiously, he saw Habrene among them, wearing a bitter frown.

He set the child upon her own hay pile and called, “Hey! This kid’s got a messed up ankle! One of you get over here and help her, now!”

The older slaves exchanged glances as if silently communicating. Finally, an older female goblin stood up and shuffled over to Liani. The girl waved at Lukas as he left, calling, “Thank you for helping me, mister!”

Lukas didn’t look back at her, simply raised his hand in a half-hearted wave before passing through the door. Vehan closed and locked it behind him.

*


	4. The Forbidden Branch

**[CHAPTER 4: THE FORBIDDEN BRANCH]**

It had been decided that Abigail and Edmund would sleep in Habrene’s bedroom—which was formerly Abigail’s in the first place. Evan and Lukas would share Evan’s old room. Connor and Isaac, with their young, hardy spines, were sentenced to the couches in the sitting room.

Evan gave Habrene his permission to clean his room before she was sentenced to the barn for the night. When he opened the door once again, he was surprised by the transformation. It looked pristine, certainly cleaner than it had ever been in his childhood. His old clothes had been washed and put away, books organized, cobwebs destroyed, and surfaces dusted.

Behind the smell of white vinegar and soap, he still caught a faint whiff of his old, pre-lycanthrope self. It had permeated the walls, the floors, probably everything in the room. He spent so many days, weeks, _months_ lying sick in this very bed, such a notion didn’t surprise him at all.

He jumped when the door creaked open behind him. Lukas walked in, looking fatigued and covered with dirt from head to toe.

“Lukas, what happened?” he queried.

His crewmen reached into the closet and began digging around in his bag. “I did some gardening,” he replied. He pulled his pajamas from his bag. Without another word, he left the room. Evan heard another door open and close from the hall, then the faint whisper of the bathtub filling.

Evan changed into his own pajamas—cotton pants and a simple button-up shirt—and flopped down on the bed. Lukas returned before long, clean and dressed down, and ready for bed himself.

Problem was, there was only a single bed, and Evan’s massive lycanthrope body already took up every inch of space upon it.

Evan was just starting to nod off when Lukas asked, “Do you think Jelani would be mad if we both squeezed into this thing?”

The captain’s eyes snapped open and he quickly sat up on his elbows. He saw Lukas wearing a little smile, his question only half-serious. “What? Suddenly you’re too good for the floor?” retorted Evan, only half-serious himself.

Lukas shot right back, “Why should I get the floor? _You’re_ the mongrel.”

With a dramatic sigh, Evan stood up and tossed his pillow and blanket on the floor. Lukas raised his palms and said, “Evan, come on! I’m kidding! Of course you can have the bed.” He swiped the linens off the floor and tossed them right back on the mattress. “I may be an ass, but you know I’m not _that_ bad.”

Evan repositioned his pillow and lie down once again. “Thanks,” he said. Lukas began spreading his own linens on the floor, placing them perpendicular to the end of the bed. Should Evan decide to sneak out, he would have to step over him and certainly wake him.

Once they were both settled in, Evan thanked the archer once more, “Lukas, um…Thank you, also, for doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“For bringing me here. Even if you had to drag me, kicking and screaming,” Evan told him. “I’m sorry I doubt your judgment so much. You’re more perceptive and more intelligent than I’ll ever be. I don’t know why I keep blowing off your advice…”

“Because you’re a stubborn fool who suffers from a bad case of tunnel-vision,” Lukas said matter-of-factly. “There’s your ‘why’. You can trust me on that, I know everything.”

A puff of air passed through Evan’s nostrils, the ghost of a chuckle. “You made a good call on this. I’m starting to feel better already, having talked to my mother. If it weren’t for your meddling, she and I would have both gone to our graves without closure. Anyway, I’m in a great deal of debt to you. If there’s anything I can do to repay you, just say the word.”

“Yeah, there is,” began Lukas. “I want you to forgive yourself. Whatever guilt you’re holding on to right now, let it go right here, right now. By the time you wake up tomorrow, you better have a clean conscience or I’ll scrape your head against a washboard and clean it for you. Deal?”

Evan opened his mouth to argue. But no words would come forth, for he had no good arguments to give anymore. Letting out a long sigh through his nostrils, he chewed the thought over for a moment before he answered, “Alright. It’s a deal.”

*

The next morning, Sofa’s guests woke to a sumptuous breakfast already prepared and steaming on the dining table. They reduced the feast to scraps, then Sofia asked Evan’s audience outside. “I want to speak with you in private for a moment,” she said. “It’s very important.”

They put on their heavy coats and stepped out onto the porch. Rather, Evan stepped out and Sofia rolled out in her wheelchair, unwilling to let him push her.

Once the door was closed and they were alone, Sofia told him bluntly, “I want you to inherit this house when I die.”

Evan jumped a little, cocking his head to the side. “What? Oh, Mama, no, I—”

“I insist. I already altered my will last night.”

“Mama,” Evan explained, holding his hands out before him in exasperation, “what could I possibly do with this place? I’m certainly not going to live in this kingdom, I can’t operate my company here, I…I can’t even dispatch half of my crew out here to work! Just give it to Edmund and Abigail like you planned.”

Sofia shook her head and told him, “I don’t want them to have it. I don’t trust Edmund, and gods know those two have enough money and land already!”

“But I can’t do anything with it. I won’t stoop so low as to lease it out, and I don’t want to pay taxes on something I’m not using. It’ll just go to waste if you give it to me.”

“Then sell it and keep the money,” said Sofia. “I don’t care what you do, just don’t sell it to Edmund. Do you remember how he and his brothers used to bully you? They used to attack you when you were walking home from school and beat you with your own crutches! Hoodlums, the lot of them!”

Evan sighed, “I’ve forgiven him for all that. I did a lot of thinking last night, and…I realized I had my circumstances, but looking back, he had his too. We both became monsters in our own ways, for our own reasons.”

Sofia reached over and squeezed his hand. “Listen to me,” she said calmly. “Your father always wanted you to inherit this place. He wrote Abigail out of his will the very day she married Edmund. Please do not dishonor his memory by refusing his gift. What you choose to do with it once it’s in your hands is your business, but at least respect his dying wishes, will you?”

Evan dragged his hands down his weary face. “So,” he began, “accept the inheritance, and under no circumstances should I let it fall into the hands of a Galanis…This is what you’re asking of me, correct?”

“Yes.”

Evan slowly nodded. After a moment, he agreed, “Very well. I suppose it’s the least I can do for poor Papa.”

*

Evan went back into the house. It was time for his crew to start packing, for they had a long trip ahead of them this evening. As he walked back to his old bedroom, he noticed the door to Habrene’s room was ajar. He peeked in and saw Abigail, brushing her long, copper hair at the vanity.

“Abby?” he queried. The woman jumped with a gasp, dropping her brush. It clattered loudly on the floorboards. Evan shrank back, showed her a little wave and hissed, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!”

Abigail pressed a hand to her chest and sighed, “It’s fine. Come on in. I’ve just gotten so jumpy about men seeing my hair ever since I got married.” She paused, then asked, “Isn’t it strange seeing Mama without her headscarf?”

Evan walked in and softly closed the door behind him. “Yes,” he agreed, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

“It’s been years and I’m _still_ not used to it,” said Abigail.

She stared ahead at the mirror as she gathered her hair between her fingers, preparing to braid it. Evan leaned against the wall. He supposed there wouldn’t be a better time to address it, so he said, “You never did explain why you married him.”

Abigail froze for just a brief moment. She kept her eyes on the mirror, hands returning to their work as she replied, “_Money_, Evan. It was always about money.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mama and Papa were in debt up to their eyeballs,” she explained. “All that medical equipment, those surgeries and medicines of yours, they didn’t come cheap.”

“I put them in debt?” Evan blurted much too loudly.

Abigail sighed, “Don’t flog yourself. It wasn’t your fault. I just wanted to make sure our family was secure, so I married into a family that was wealthier than ours. That’s all there is to it. It certainly wasn’t to spite you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Evan’s brows drooped. He asked delicately, “Are you happy with him, Abigail?”

His sister’s shoulders jumped. “That doesn’t matter,” she said flippantly. “All that ever mattered to me was that your health was taken care of and Mama and Papa wouldn’t lose the farm. All their debts were paid off a long time ago. Everything worked out for the best.”

“Huh,” Evan mumbled, “you sure take after Mama. Always taking care of others, but never yourself.”

“At least I don’t take after Papa,” Abigail replied, finishing the last twist in her braid. “Always taking care of himself, but never others. Look, when my family is happy, I’m happy too. I know Edmund is an ass at times, but he does love me, and he’s always been a good provider.”

“He had the biggest crush on you when were kids,” mentioned Evan. “I felt like he only picked on me to get attention from you, even if you were beating him into the dirt.”

Abigail smiled and stood up. She reached for the headscarf hanging on the hook beside her brother. She began tying it around her head as she said, “For as much trouble as he gave you, he never laid a hand on me. Still hasn’t. He knows I could’ve killed him then and I’d kill him now.”

She paused, grinning. “He only liked me because I had the ‘Atlas chest’ anyway.” She finished tying her headscarf and patted Evan’s bulging pectorals. “I see you finally grew into yours too!” she laughed.

Evan slapped her hand away with a roll of his eyes. He told her, “Well, you two managed to raise a fine son together.”

“Oh, Evan, Connor’s a terrible delinquent…” Abigail sighed, slumping against the wall beside him. “Edmund wants him to take over his business, but that boy is going to run it straight into the ground! All he does is get into fights and cause trouble. If you ask me, he’s better off swinging a sword at foreign soldiers. I think the military would do him some good, but Edmund won’t even hear it.”

Evan nodded, silent in thought for a time. Then he suggested, “How would he feel about letting Connor train with us for a while? Just a few weeks of boot camp, nothing dangerous. It might straighten out his behavior.”

The woman crossed her arms, tilting her head towards the ceiling. “I don’t like the idea,” she admitted, “but we’re really running out of options. Connor will be sixteen soon, and then I don’t know what we’re going to do. Edmund’s the man of the house. The decision rests on him.”

“Just mention it to him, okay? The offer’s always open,” Evan said, offering a smile.

Abigail offered one back, though her eyes were still weary. “I will. Thank you.”

*

Lukas supposed it was time to start packing his things. He opened the door to Evan’s old bedroom and jumped with a start, for there was already someone inside.

Isaac looked back at him. The young man was elbow-deep in a dresser drawer, and other things in the room were misplaced as if tampered with.

“What are you doing, snooping around in here?” Lukas asked sharply.

Isaac stepped away from the dresser. His voice cracked when he replied, “Nothing…”

“’Nothing’, my ass! You’re being rude!” Lukas told him, snagging the back of his shirt. He dragged Isaac towards the door and pushed him over the threshold. “You have no business rooting through this old woman’s house. Get lost.”

With that, he slammed the door in the young man’s face. He heard Isaac curse him from behind it, then his footsteps storming away. Lukas stood there for a moment, surveying the room. Then he approached the drawer Isaac left open and began rooting through it himself.

Evan had snooped through _his_ childhood bedroom last year, Lukas reasoned. It was only fair that he do the same.

The top drawer was not filled with clothes, but rather, various tins of medication and medical supplies. He found antibacterial ointment, a bottle of long-expired soap, rolls of gauze, and antibiotic pills that, judging by the plastic container, had been illegally imported from Zareen Empire.

Lukas didn’t know much about this kingdom, but he did know that plastics were strictly forbidden in its borders. Before they could even leave the dragonport, guards frisked them and snatched the plastic pen from his coat pocket.

“There isn’t a sailor’s chance in Lostland you’re getting that pen back,” Evan explained as they left. “They’ll throw it on a barge with other confiscated goods and sell it back to Zareen Empire.”

In the depths of the closet, he found several metal leg braces in various sizes and a pair of crutches leaning beside them. Peeking in the side table drawer, a pair of round children’s glasses looked back at him.

As Lukas lifted his head, he saw movement through the window. Though the crops had been harvested, it seemed a slave’s work was never done, for a large group of them were rolling a giant bale of hay across the field. Vehan trailed behind them with his iron rod in hand.

Lukas squinted, noticing Liani among them. She struggled along on her bad ankle until once again, she tumbled down, falling face-first in the dirt. The other slaves never even glanced, didn’t dare stop working as Vehan stopped to shout at the girl.

Lukas unlatched the window and yanked it open. In the distance, Vehan grabbed Liani’s wrist and jerked her back to her feet, urging her to move. She took a few steps before losing her balance again.

The roshava brandished the iron rod in his top right hand, raising it high to strike her. Before he could bring it down, it was snatched out of his grip. He whirled around to see Lukas glaring back at him.

“Does it make you feel tough, bullying crippled children?” snapped Lukas.

Vehan’s red face twisted into a scowl. “_I_ am their overseer! They do as _I_ say, or they suffer the consequences! Give that back!” he growled, swiping for his weapon. Lukas jerked it out of his reach.

“Fine, take it,” the archer dared, spinning the rod between his fingers like a baton. Vehan swiped at it again. As he did, Lukas tossed it up in the air and spun around, catching it behind his back. “Almost got it!”

Behind Vehan, Liani stifled a giggle.

Vehan snarled as he reached for it a third time. Lukas tossed it up once more, performing a cartwheel before smoothly catching it. “So close!” he taunted, shooting a wink at Liani. She threw her hands over her mouth to muffle her laughter.

The roshava had enough. He charged forward with a mighty bellow, all four fists raised and ready to strike. Lukas expected as much, and smoothly slid between his attacker’s long legs to evade him. In an instant, he jumped up high and swung the rod at the back of Vehan’s head. It made contact with a hollow “clang!”.

Vehan staggered forward and Lukas quickly seized the moment, delivering a swift kick to his behind. The roshava fell face-first into the dirt. Lukas turned to Liani and waved the rod towards the other slaves. “Go!” he hissed, and the girl obeyed, hobbling away as fast as her crippled ankle could carry her.

By the time Vehan got to his feet, Lukas had already bolted away towards the house with his weapon. Vehan let out a vicious snarl as he took off after him.

*

Time with her guests was running out, so Sofia decided to spend the last of it with her grandson. Everyone else was so busy packing, Isaac felt he was only getting in the way. He decided to join Sofia and Connor in the sitting room for tea.

“This is ginger and honey tea,” explained Sofia, pouring the amber liquid from a pot into the boys’ delicate cups. “It’ll soothe a sore throat, you know. I used to make this for your Uncle Evan almost every day.”

Connor and Isaac sipped from their cups. Connor crossed his eyes and raised his littlest finger just to make Isaac laugh, with such success that Isaac sputtered the tea up his own nose.

Suddenly the front door swung open and someone burst through, startling Sofia. She dropped her teacup on the coffee table with a shriek. Tea spilled across its surface and Isaac immediately pulled off his sweater, throwing it over the mess before it spread to the rug. He was left in his white undershirt as he glared at the intruder and snapped, “Luke! You almost gave Evan’s mom another heart attack!”

Lukas ignored him and approached Sofia. An instant later, Vehan rushed through the doorway after him, stopping near the threshold. Lukas pointed the metal rod at the roshava and panted, “Mrs. Atlas, were you aware that this man was out there causing damage to your property?”

Sofia’s hand was pressed to her chest, looking between the two with confusion. “He was what?”

“Liar! He’s lying!” growled the roshava. He tried to swipe the weapon from Lukas, but Lukas jerked it away and explained to Sofia,

“If you want proof, just look at the burn marks on your slaves’ backs! They match the size of this rod exactly! One of them has an injured ankle and this brute was about to beat her down even further!”

“Shut up!” snarled Vehan, seizing Lukas by his locks.

Before he could strike the archer, Sofia shouted, “Vehan, that’s enough! Unhand my guest this instant!”

Vehan cocked his head, shooting a strange look at Sofia. Slowly, he released Lukas’ hair.

“You’re not even supposed to set foot in this house,” Sofia went on sharply, shaking her finger at the roshava. “I’m going to inspect the slaves tonight, and you’d better hope I don’t find those injuries Mr. Lukas speaks of! Now go back to your cabin and stay there for the rest of the day. Those hobgoblins can manage just fine without you.”

“But Mrs. Atlas, I was ju—” Vehan began pitifully.

But Sofia thrusted her finger towards the door and shouted, “Out! Get out of this house or you’re out of your job!”

Raising all four of his palms in defeat, Vehan backed away and shuffled out of the house, softly closing the door behind him.

Lukas leaned the rod against a chair, then sat down in that same chair to catch his breath. Sofia sighed, “Thank you for your concern, dear. The slaves really prefer to keep to themselves, so I never know what’s going on out there until it’s become dire or Vehan says something to me.”

“I grew up in Matuzan slave-country, ma’am. Trust me, I know how it is.” Lukas gestured vaguely towards the front door. “You have an injured one out there, a little elf named Liani. She needs to stay off her ankle for a couple weeks or else she’ll be lamed for good. She’s a valuable one, you don’t want to lose her.”

Sofia’s brows arched. “Oh? Well, I had no idea! I’m ashamed to admit, I don’t know most of the field slaves by name. Edmund hired Vehan to manage them for me, so I’ve hardly had to interact with them at all.”

Isaac carefully picked up his sweater, now with a large, wet splotch on its front. Connor snatched it from his hand, waving it in the air as he yelled, “Hey, Habrene! Come here! We got some laundry for you! _Habrene_!”

In seconds, Habrene rushed in from the kitchen and took the sweater. She paid him a shallow bow and a, “Yes, Sir,” before scurrying off with it.

“In all honesty,” Sofia continued, refilling her teacup, “I really don’t care for Vehan. I understand he’s here to keep me safe and all, but did Edmund have to hire someone so _brutish_? Why not a human? A two-handed person can crack a whip just as well as a four-handed person, don’t you think?”

Lukas raised a hand to his face and scrubbed at his eyes. “Sure,” he said wearily.

Sofia nodded her head towards the rod leaning against his chair and added, “If I knew he was using _that_ terrible thing to punish them, I would have fired him ages ago! How barbaric!”

“Are you gonna fire him now?” queried Isaac.

Sofia sighed, “Yes. Whether I find evidence or not, I’m telling Edmund I want that nasty roshava gone. He continues to leave beer bottles all over the fields despite my complaints, and he invites strange women to the property without asking me. Not to mention that filthy cabin of his has been attracting rats! This is my final straw with him!”

Evan walked in from the hallway then, wearing his heavy bag on his shoulder. He set it beside the front door with the other bags and said, “I think we’re just about ready to go.”

Just a moment later, Edmund and Abigail followed. Abigail bid her mother farewell with a hug and a kiss, Edmund offering a shallow bow.

“Wait, wait! Habrene’s still washing my shirt!” exclaimed Isaac.

“How wonderful!” said Sofia, pressing her hands together. “That gives me more time with my babies!”

“I’m in my forties, Mama, and Evan’s darn near,” Abigail told her.

Sofia shook her head. “I don’t care if you’re in your hundreds, you’ll always be my babies.” She chuckled as she reached over and pinched Connor’s cheek. The boy groaned and sunk down into the couch.

Sofia suddenly gasped, “Oh! I almost forgot something! Evan, will you come with me for a moment?”

Evan followed her as she wheeled herself down the hall and into her bedroom. “Close the door, please,” she said, and he obeyed. He waited beside it as she stooped over and slipped her hand under the mattress, searching for something beneath.

“Do you want help?” asked Evan.

“No, no, I’ve got it!” the old woman replied, then she pulled out a thin, leatherbound book. She wheeled back to Evan and handed it to him.

The cover was tattered and blackened as if it had been scorched. A leather cord was wrapped around it horizontally and tied into a knot, keeping it from falling open. It smelled of dust and char.

“That belonged to your father,” Sofia explained. “It was in his family, for…I daresay seven or eight generations!”

Evan turned the strange book over in his hands. The name “ATLAS” was stamped into the leather on the front. “What is it?” he asked.

His mother hesitated before answering, “I’ll let you find out for yourself. Just don’t open it somewhere public, please. Grandmama Angeline passed this down to Foster shortly before she died…”

She shook her head and went on, “He took one look through it tossed it straight in the fireplace. Thankfully, I was able to rescue it without his knowing, and I hid it away for all these years. I…I wasn’t really sure what to do with it. I’ve already showed it to Abigail and she wanted nothing to do with it either. To be honest, I scarcely want the thing any more than she does.”

The old woman sighed, “Just take it, will you? You can keep it or throw it out, it doesn’t matter to me. There’s just, um…some information in there you probably ought to know, even if it’s difficult to digest.”

Evan quirked an eyebrow. The urge to rip the thing open here and now was strong, but his respect for his mother was stronger. So he tucked the book into the inner pocket of his coat and said, “Okay, uh…Thank you, I guess. It’s not cursed, is it? As in, some malign creature won’t crawl out of it and haunt me, right?”

He was only half-serious, but he could only imagine what secrets a man like his father had been keeping.

“Of course not,” Sofia chuckled. “You know I’d never keep anything magical in this house! Just take it home and have a look when you get a moment alone. You’ll find it quite _interesting_, if nothing else.”

*

Waving goodbye to Atlas Farms, the mercenaries and the Galanis family boarded a carriage back to Greenhearst’s dragonport.

The moment an attendant opened the stable door, Shadow burst through in a flurry of black feathers and monstrous caws. She sprinted towards Isaac with her great wings outstretched, knocking him to the ground before sitting on him as if he were an egg.

Once the roc settled down, she was able to carry her gazebo full of passengers back to Evangeline Capital. It was well into the evening by the time the Galanis family were back on their doorstep. A cold wind was blowing, pulling the last of the fiery leaves from the trees.

“I suppose this is where we part ways,” Abigail said to Evan. She wore a smile, though her tone was sullen.

Connor stepped forth and asked his uncle, “You’ll come again, right? Like, soon?”

Evan nodded. “If you’ll have me, I’m sure I can visit again in late winter. At least for a day or two.”

“Okay, but make sure you bring Isaac with you,” said Connor. “He’s a class fella. I didn’t have to beat him up once.”

“You don’t _have_ to beat up anyone, you brat,” scolded Abigail.

Connor extended a hand to Isaac for a shake. Isaac accepted, wearing a cheeky smile as he squeezed the boy’s fingers much too hard. “Oooow!” Connor wailed, then squeezed back. The boys broke into a fit of laughter and began punching eachother.

“That’s enough, you two,” warned Edmund. He separated the boys, then spoke to Evan, “Mr. Atlas, it’s been a pleasure. Whenever we inherit the farm, remind me to give you a full year in one of our townhouses, completely rent-free.” He shrugged. “And if you like the place, who knows? Maybe you’ll want to plant your roots back in blue country.”

Evan forced a smile to the best of his ability, knowing Edmund was in for a rude awakening whenever that dreadful day came. “A full year. How very generous of you, Mr. Galanis,” he replied flatly, unable to force sincerity he simply didn’t have. “However, I’m in no hurry to live under your lordship. May that day be a long, long time from today, so we can dine together at my mother’s table for many years to come.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Edmund said quickly, waving his hand before him. “May it come when we’re old and gray, long retired with a foot in our graves.”

A smile crossed Evan’s face, more sincere than before. He extended his hand for a shake and said, “Stay out of trouble, Eddie.”

“Likewise, Shrimp.” Edmund smiled back and shook his hand, wincing at Evan’s crushing squeeze.

They locked eyes for a brief moment, with a silent understanding between them that the squeeze was not a threat. It was simply a reminder.

The mercenaries waved their goodbyes and boarded the carriage once more. They returned to the dragonport to meet Shadow, and at last, they were on their way home. Evan and Lukas were left alone in the gazebo while Isaac piloted Shadow away from the setting sun.

Lukas sat back against the wall, tucking his arms behind his head as he asked, “So, what are you planning to do when you inherit that farm?”

Evan’s wide eyes flicked towards him. “How did you know about that?” he asked. Quickly, he shook his head and added, “Ugh, nevermind. Of course you do. You know everything.”

Lukas smiled. “Well?”

“I’m not really sure,” Evan sighed. “Maybe I can give it to Jelani. I’m sure he could find some use for it, and I trust he wouldn’t turn around and sell it to Edmund if I asked him not to.”

“_Give_ it? _Sell_ it to that rich blowhard! If you’re going to court a king, why not take him for all he’s worth?”

The captain thumped his head back against the wall and replied, “Nothing’s set in stone yet. I’ll have to give it some thought. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with it any time soon.”

“Gods forbid,” Lukas added, pulling a flask from the inner pocket of his coat. He took a sip and offered it to Evan, who took it gratefully. “You told her about your thing with Jelani, didn’t you?”

“No, no, no,” Evan replied quickly, shaking his head. “I don’t want to give her another heart attack. She doesn’t even know I’m a merryman. It’s illegal over there, you know that.”

“Sure, but so is being a lycanthrope,” mentioned Lukas, taking back the flask. “Being merry-for-menfolk can’t be any more shocking than that.”

Evan rubbed at his aching temples. “One thing at a time, alright?”

The gazebo quaked slightly. Then the passengers’ stomachs dropped as Shadow suddenly dipped low. It wasn’t low enough, apparently, for they heard a few soft patters and honks against the wall.

Isaac’ voice called from above, “Sorry, we hit some geese! They’re all okay, uh, I think!”

“Damn it, kid…” Lukas muttered under his breath.

After a long moment, Evan cleared his throat and said, “So, er, Isaac told me you got into a spat with Mama’s slavemaster before we left…”

“I did,” answered Lukas, taking another sip from the flask, “and I regret nothing.”

“Well, I just wanted to apologize for the, uh…_cultural differences_ you experienced. It’s really quite disgusting. I take no pride in my heritage, just so you know.”

Lukas rolled his eyes. “Pff, as if mine is any better,” he mumbled. He knocked back the last of the alcohol in the flask, then added, “She might be a backwoods slaveowner, but at least your mother loves you. She has real, genuine love for you, Evan. I can tell. Never take that for granted, because there are a lot of people out there who would give anything to _have_ a mother. Others…”

He shrugged. “…just wish theirs was dead.”

*

It was around midnight by the time Shadow touched down in Drifter’s Hollow. The trio of mercenaries trudged off to their respective homes for some much-needed rest.

Lukas climbed the ladder to his treehouse while Evan and Isaac went off to the little stone house across the street. Isaac disappeared up into the attic, Evan into his bedroom on the first floor.

He should have been exhausted. But Evan caught a nap on the flight and it gave him some energy to spare, so he took a moment to unpack his bags instead of making it tomorrow’s problem. He hung his armor on its stand and his weapons on their rack, tucked his clothes in the dresser, and tossed his toiletries into a drawer.

As he put his clothes away, he found his gift from Matthias still tucked into a pocket. He’d almost forgotten about it.

He pulled a wooden chest down from a shelf in his closet and opened it with a small key he kept on his belt with all his other keys. Inside the box was a modest collection of pornography, an expensive bottle of bourbon, and a stack of love letters from Jelani.

This was his so-called “Secret Stash of Shame”. Everybody had one, he assumed, but that didn’t stop him from trying to conceal it as if it contained a severed head. He placed the lewd old photo inside and closed it up again, pushing it back into the cluttered depths of his closet.

He realized he was alone in his room and he wasn’t going to sleep any time soon. So Evan plucked the strange, scorched book from his coat pocket and sat on the end of his bed with it. He stared down at it for a moment, unsure if he really wanted to open it at all.

What kind of book could cause a gruff, tough man like Foster so much grief that he tried to burn it?

Did the book contain evidence for some crime he’d committed? Evan knew there was only one way to find out, so he carefully untied the knot of the cord that kept the book closed tight. Once it was undone, he gently flipped the delicate cover over.

The pages inside were yellowed, ragged, most blackened at the edges. Some were still attached at the spine while others had come loose. It seemed to be some kind of scrapbook filled with letters, drawn portraits, photographs…

Evan gasped with delight when he realized it was a record of his family’s genealogy. The letters were from Foster’s ancestors, dating back hundreds of years. The portraits and photographs were probably the last remnants of their likenesses on Looming Gaia.

He skimmed through a few letters penned by his grandparents, their grandparents, and their grandparents. The further back he went, the less legible they became, either because the paper was too damaged or because the language they spoke then was an older, mostly defunct language native to the region—rather than the _Universa_ spoken today.

Atlas farms had been in the family for longer than he thought. He found a sketch of the property dating back five generations, and to his surprise, it looked almost exactly the same as it did that morning. Even slaves were depicted working the fields. Such a picture could have been drawn hours ago and he’d never know the difference.

Evan flipped another page and a grungy, yellowed slip of paper fell out onto the floor. He bent over to pick it up and realized it was actually several pieces of starchy cloth stitched together and folded up small. It unfolded into a tapestry so large, he had to lay it on the floor to see the whole thing.

It was a family tree, he realized, with names of his ancestors as well as their dates of birth and death woven into the fabric. At the top was Julek and Edytha, his oldest known ancestors. He followed the line down to their children, their children’s children, their children’s children’s children, and so on, until he reached Foster’s parents.

Grandpapa Connor and Grandmama Angeline were marked here, as well as what appeared to be Foster’s two siblings that Evan never knew much about. As a child, he once asked Foster if he had any aunts or uncles, to which Foster replied, “Two uncles. They were sick and they died young,” and that was the end of that.

It must have been true, for neither of his brothers had branches extending vertically from them, meaning they never had children. Their dates of birth and death were six and fourteen years apart, respectively.

Foster’s name marked the very bottom of the tree. Lines extended from Grandpapa Connor and Grandmama Angeline, converging towards Foster’s name. But Evan noticed another line as well, spreading horizontally from Connor to Angeline. He furrowed his brow and studied it for a long moment.

Eyes scanning back up the tree, he searched for similar lines. All of them connected siblings. But that couldn’t be right…

Evan looked back to Connor and Angeline’s names. Staring hard for a long moment, he came to a shocking realization: Unlike the other women in the tree, Angeline had no maiden name.

Connor Atlas. Angeline Atlas. Connected by a horizontal line indicating that they were, in fact, brother and sister.

Evan’s hands suddenly became damp with sweat. His stomach twisted and his heart raced as he frantically scanned the massive tree ten, twenty, thirty times over, searching desperately for some mistake.

There was no mistake to be found. Foster was the product of a stereotypical, incestuous Evangelite relationship. Ironic, Evan thought, considering inbreeders were one of the “degenerate groups” he would so passionately rage against in his daily rantings.

“It’s no wonder there’s so many ugly, half-wit degenerates these days—they’re all inbred freaks!” he’d say.

Evan raked his hands through his hair, stepping away from the tapestry. He sat down on the side of his bed and faced the blank wall for a moment, trying to sort his chaotic thoughts.

Well, Sofia hadn’t been wrong. This was _interesting_ alright.

But the more Evan thought about it, the more his troubled memories began to make sense. Foster’s secrecy, his alcoholism, his needlessly aggressive and insensitive behavior…

Perhaps it was all just his way of coping with the shame of his identity. He must have known his whole life what he was, not just the moment Grandmama Angeline passed down the book.

The book was just evidence—no, _proof_ of what he was. By burning it, Foster thought he could live a lie and run from himself forever. He never faced the reality of who he was, and even before Evan took his life, the shame was already killing him inside.

Evan felt a sudden weight lift from his body, though he hadn’t moved a muscle. An eye had opened that he didn’t know he had, and in that moment, he knew that he would never feel the same. Not just about his father, but about himself as well.

“Atlas jaw” indeed! There was a reason the Atlas features were so strong, and the thought twisted his stomach even harder.

Grandpapa Connor died when Evan was quite young. He didn’t remember much of the man except that he smelled like cigars and his loud coughing frightened him and Abigail.

Grandmama Angeline, he remembered vividly. He was eight years old when she passed on. She put Foster’s surliness to shame, used to criticize every little thing that Sofia did as a wife and as a mother. She hated Abigail just as much.

“You’re fat and homely like your mother!” she’d say to the girl, despite being rather fat and homely herself.

But for whatever reason, that miserable woman loved Evan with all her heart, and he loved her just as much. She made clothes and blankets for him, which Sofia would find excuses to throw out. She would tend his wounds and brew medicine for him when he was sick.

Perhaps she just felt sorry for him in his frail condition, maybe even a bit responsible for it. If Foster’s brothers died from illness, then…Well, it was too late to truly know her motives.

However, to think his beloved grandmama was married to her own brother that whole time, and his father was the product of that shameful mess…How _could_ Evan look at himself and his family the same way again? His whole life, in some way, felt like a massive lie.

Evan carefully folded the tapestry and tucked it back into the book. He closed the brittle old thing tight, wrapped its cord around it and tied it even tighter.

The fireplace was crackling away just one room over. He could destroy all evidence of his family’s blunder in less than a minute.

Instead, he placed the book into his Secret Stash of Shame with all the other things that weren’t fit to be seen by anyone’s eyes but his own. These things were important to him nonetheless.

Unlike his father, Evan decided that he would not run from his identity. He would not deny it, nor try to forget it. He was what he was and there was no changing it.

He was a backwoods, cornfed, Evangelite merryman with lycanthropy who descended from inbred slaveowners, and he took pride in absolutely none of that.

But he refused to be ashamed of it anymore either. Like his mother said, his guilt wasn’t helping himself or anyone else. Finally, at long last, he was able to let go of it just like his loved ones asked him to.

From that day forward, he wished to make the world a better place, not out of some compulsive urge to soothe his guilt, but out of love for himself and all those around him.

He couldn’t wait until winter. Sofia had a lot of explaining to do.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story! If you have any comments or criticisms, please let me know.
> 
> Here’s some random trivia…Grandmama Angeline was actually a prominent character in the original “Monster by Moonlight”. There was also a few scenes with Matthias, including the one described here where he gave Evan the picture.
> 
> It all got cut out in the interest of decluttering that story and keeping it as short as possible, but hopefully this one made up for it. Thank you so much for reading!


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